


Ticket to nowhere (No refunds or exchanges)

by boxofwonder



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Queerplatonic relationship, actually a bar joke gone wrong, im sorry for the unicorns, magical road trip GO!, shameless baccano references, this is the wildest thing ive ever written
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-20 22:32:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4804646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxofwonder/pseuds/boxofwonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A frustrated white mage, a demon looking for trouble and Kenma Kozume, who really just wants a slice of apple pie, walk into a bar.<br/>Only Kenma walks out, because Futakuchi, Oikawa and bartender Ushijima fall through a portal and right into an involuntary road trip through the magical realm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ticket to rabid pony island

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Metis_Ink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metis_Ink/gifts).



> Dedicated to my beautiful, amazing qp. I hope you never get a birthday present as insane as this again. Happy birthday to you, please take the rarepair #1 with a big dash of magic, ridiculous shenanigans, Feelings and fire safety gone very, very wrong.
> 
> Deep in my heart, this whacky masterpiece will forever stay Mystery Fic.

"I can't believe we have to find a date for a seamonster to get your boyfriend back," Oikawa growls, kicking at the sand of the beach. Ushijjima is simply relieved the frustrated gesture did not set any more lonely monsters off. They have a bad track record with that, and Oikawa should really be more mindful of it.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” he replies evenly, picking up pace. “He’s married.”

With another muffled growl, Oikawa matches his stride. “He just threw his ring into the ocean.”

“Shut up and concentrate on the task at hand.”

 

\---

 

Between the not-quite spite of the witches from the South and the East, the ever raging fight of the gnome clans over the by-now rotting carcass of the basilisk right next to the Glistening Glen, home to the elves - The Soaring Eagle is the only neutral place to go where there is no risk of getting hit by spells, arrows, rocks, or an actual fully-sized gnome in the beautiful land of Datekou.

(A gnome's size is not the problem, it’s their sheer weight - if someone was angry and dedicated enough to lift and even _throw_ an entire gnome, when you’re hit, it’s often severely damaging and sometimes lethal. And even if you're not hit, the person is probably out for your blood in general.)

The Soaring Eagle is an unsuspecting hut built between two large rocks rumoured to once have been a witch’s eyeballs, though only tourists actually believe that story. It’s a lot larger on the inside than it seems from afar, patiently fixed and re-painted countless times.

The building manages to seem as much fragile and at risk to be crushed by the stones surrounding it, as it seems like it will be standing there still in a 100 years, when even the rocks have started to crumble. A really strange charm, but one known and appreciated by all races of the country.

The biggest part that ensured its survival - especially compared to the million burned down bars - are the policies the owner and bartender Ushijima Wakatoshi has established.

The rough of it is on a wooden sign outside, hammered into the ground: FIGHT, GET KICKED OUT.

In much smaller letters, there’s a second sign nailed under it: No magic, fist fights, weapons, portable spells, potions, mushrooms, swords, shields, spears, machetes, nets, spell books, spell e-books, spell notes, enchanted pets, non-magical pets, speaking pets, NO DRAGONS, bewitched princes/princesses/other, no howling at the moon, contact lenses, toupees, crystal balls, flirting with staff, actual staffs -

The list actually goes on, but you get the gist of it.

Part of the Eagle staff, and most of the reason those rules are widely respected, is a human woman everyone knows as Swan. There’s probably more rumours about her in all eighteen Kingdoms of the magical realm than about the Soaring Eagle itself, but at the end of the day nobody really knows where and why she learned her skills, and most is simply suggestions.

Fact is, she’s the kind of person who can avert a spell thrown at her single-handedly while beating up two gnomes who broke Ushijima’s favourite glasses, imported from the Fiery Realms where the dragons live. (Nobody ever claimed magical creatures were particularly creative in naming their countries.) (Also, dragons are actually surprisingly crafty.)

With Swan keeping balance and order, Ushijima Wakatoshi is mostly free to tend to a quite normal bar. He’s mostly quiet, polishing glasses, listening to the love troubles of elves, financial situation of dwarves or home situations of werewolf teenagers not old enough to drink yet, but rather kept right there sipping some milk than to have them get into trouble somewhere else.

The Soaring Eagle is first and foremost a place for everyone to bond, drink, cope, participate in the rumour mill and find a little peace. And everyone thinks fondly of the bartender, even of Swan, who is a great listener unless you piss her off or try to flirt.

Lately, most of Ushijima’s time is taken up by a newly-wed white mage with more regrets than grains of sand in the hour glass in the shelf behind Ushijima. His troubles are nothing new, a story repeated a million times, but as Ushijima polishes another of his favourite Dragonland Glasses, soothed by the background chatter of his bar, he finds something interesting about the mage nonetheless, something that won't stop capturing his attention. Maybe it’s his sharp tongue or sharper eyes.

Ushijima, he keeps listening.

The mage, his name revealed after his third night at the bar as being Futakuchi Kenji, attends the bar as well, this faithful night, his mood even worse than usual.

The moment anyone ordered a Triple Dragon Twister, it meant they had a strong will to forget utterly, or nurse the worst hangover of their life. His stoic face not betraying any of the worry he might have felt mixing that disaster drink, Ushijima trusts in the fact that Futakuchi will probably open up during the course of the night, so he can try to help.

As best as one could help, at least, if you are a simple bartender who can't even be considered an actual friend to the person you are worried about.

Neither of them can actually anticipate the turn this evening will take yet, though.

So, right at the counter we have those two, Futakuchi listless staring down at the swirling rainbow colours of his drink, interrupted by the occasional small burst of smoke exploding from the liquid, and Ushijima looking at the mage with his fingers curled helplessly, wishing there was something he could do.

At an unsuspecting corner table, there is another person who will play a major role. His name is Kenma Kozume, though nobody in this bar actually knows that. They've all seen his face, probably - he enjoys pressing himself into the shadows, peeking out from under his hood. The young man left his staff at home, as per usual, but is actually powerful enough to keep a spoon slowly stirring his hot chocolate (the best in all the Kingdoms, if you asked him) while he's flipping through a book, not much attention on his spell.

Outside the dusty window close to his corner space sits a black cat with tousled fur, glaring into the bar, keeping an eye on him. The fate of a familiar who refused to take his human form out of sheer stubbornness tonight, and was forced to stay outside.

Kenma Kozume is seeking a soothing, pleasant evening with reading and his favourite apple pie tonight.

Futakuchi Kenji is seeking a place to drown his misery.

Ushijima Wakatoshi is simply facing another day of his routine, finding a soft spot for the mage that runs a little deeper than anticipated. The evening is peaceful for Eagle standards, and it might have stayed this way, treated them all to what they were seeking.

If not for the fourth and last factor in what made this night so remarkable.

Because when the doors fly open, hitting the walls, and consequently two gargoyles which are very much not amused - there is a fourth person. Cape flaring and the cold rush of air he brings with him making a bachelorette party of felines bristle and break into hissing, he strides in, his head held high. Horns spiral from his chocolate brown locks, and his eyes flash a deep shade of red when he takes the place next to Futakuchi.

His name is Oikawa Tooru, and it's too bad that Swan is two minutes into a fifteen minute break exactly this second.

"What can I get you?" Ushijima asks, politely, because no matter how much he'd like to keep this one customer company, of course he has many more.

"I really dislike your face," the demon replies, voice all faux cheer with something heavier underneath.

Ushijima, unfazed by such accusations after a decade of running this bar, opens his mouth to repeat his question calmly, when Futakuchi whips around in his seat. The slump to his shoulders is gone, his dull eyes blazing with a new spark.

"How about I get you a fist to the face, asshole," Futakuchi drawls.

"Oh?" The demon turns to face him, a bright smile on his face that is so sharp around the edges, Ushijima is considering adding it to the list of forbidden weapons at this place. "You're a mage, aren't you? Aren't you all utterly weak without your ridiculous wood sticks?"

Futakuchi smiles as a reply. "It's called a staff."

Then he drives his fist into the demon's face.

It's so fast, nobody actually realises what happened until Oikawa topples from his chair to the ground into a crumpled heap covered by his cape like a carelessly thrown on blanket.

Futakuchi blinks down at Oikawa, the first person he has ever punched in his life, a wide grin slowly spreading on his face as he works his aching hand.

Ushijima blinks at Futakuchi, a frown pulling down the corners of his mouth after his favourite customer had just revoked a life long right to enter the Soaring Eagle.

Oikawa slowly raises his head, glaring at Futakuchi with the red of his irises slowly seeping into the white of his eyes.

Kenma still looks down at his book, so far undisturbed at the other end of the room.

Everything goes downhill from there. Swan is still in the backroom, munching on a croissant, ready to get back to duty in eleven minutes, enjoying the new soundproof walls granting the most relaxing break experiences.

Oikawa jumps up and drags Futakuchi off the chair, and the both of them descend into a screeching pile of scratching, hair pulling and hissing as they roll across the floor. By now they have the attention of everyone in the bar, anticipating Swan kicking someone's ass again. That's always entertaining for the ones who didn't break the rules.

Instead, what they see is Ushijima leaping across the counter and swiftly into a crouch, grabbing the two fighting men at the collar and dragging them apart as he stands up, holding them like one might hold scolded puppies.

"You both broke the rules," he declares. A mixed group of dwarves, elves, and the two gargoyles hit earlier break into laughter. They meet here for a weekly get-together of their fishing club, but are never ones to shy away from laughing at the misery or embarrassment of guests who dare overstep the Eagle's boundaries.

"Cease this foolish behaviour now or you will forever regret -"

Oikawa does not let him finish. He looks Ushijima directly into the eyes as he raises his hand, conjures some sparks, and sets Futakuchi's tunic on fire. Ushijima drops Futakuchi like he burned his hands, which he didn't because the flames have not yet reached his collar. A well-meaning guest jumps up to dump their glass over Futakuchi, unfortunately containing alcoholic beverage. The bar dissolves into screams and laughter.

Ushijima, the only one sensible enough to actually know about fire safety, grabs the emergency kit and wraps Futakuchi into the fire blanket, holding him tightly until the fire is extinguished at last. When he releases him, Futakuchi jumps at Oikawa like an arrow fired, hands outstretched and a growl on his lips. Slightly baffled for a second, not having expected Futakuchi to jump right back into fighting, Ushijima steels his shoulders and rushes after the two.

A tangled heap again, this time upright, they struggle backwards, hands occupied in what looks like a bizarre version of double sided arm wrestling, usually only played if a creature possessed four arms or more.

At the same time that the hissing and spitting pair is fighting and stumbling backwards, the tall and intimidating bartender on their heel ready to wreak havoc and make them regret the entire evening, Kenma Kozume looks up for the first time this evening.

It's just in the second that Oikawa roars, sparks flying all around, and Futakuchi is so enraged his skin has started glowing, their energies clashing with so much force they finally topple, right towards Kenma's table, where a waiter had just put a steaming, fresh slice of apple pie in front of him.

With the world he'd just read about still fresh in his mind, Kenma panics.

There is no other way to put it.

Behind him, glass is shattering as familiar Kuroo Tetsurou bursts through the window in his human form, ready to protect him. There are three people threatening to squish his cake, two of which are emitting bright lights, one of them shouting. With the ringing of glass shards in his ears, Kenma squeezes his eyes shut, his hand flaring out, describing a quick circle in the air.

Here's what Ushijima Wakatoshi sees: his favourite customer, and his least favourite customer as of today are a glowing, sparking, hissing tangle tumbling towards a table with a sheepish, quiet kid Ushijima has always appreciated as a well-mannered, honest customer.

The very same kid looking utterly terrified as behind him a window shatters and a guy jumps through, waving his hand out. (He will be banned for shattering the window.)

With a crackling noise, something _happens_. Definitely magic, the way it makes his hair stand on end and his heart work just a bit harder to keep beating. With a swirl of colours, a huge portal opens right in front of them.

The lamps all around shatter, silence falls abruptly. Oikawa falls through first, dragging Futakuchi with him. It all happens so slowly, and Ushijima forces himself forward, determined to prevent a catastrophe. His fingers grasp for the burned edge of Futakuchi's tunic. For a second he thinks he might miss. Forces himself further, muscles burning. Ushijima manages to grasp the tunic. He's about to pull Futakuchi back out, and the demon with him. But there's a sudden jerk, pulling him off balance. The bar watches in utter silence as Ushijima is the last to topple through the portal, which closes with a rumbling noise.

The lights flicker back on.

Kuroo lands on Kenma's apple pie, for which he will be ignored all evening, after Kenma is done freaking out about sending the bartender of his favourite place and two strangers through an accidental portal.

Eight minutes later, Swan will return to the main room brushing croissant crumbs off her tunic, feeling ready to get back to work until she realises what she missed during break. (She has to beat it out of Kuroo Tetsurou, who marks encountering Swan down as one of the most terrifying experiences of his life, and neither him nor Kenma can actually fix anything about this, which doesn't get him any points in her book.)

People will still talk about this particular evening months afterwards, the stories becoming wilder and wilder until in the end, the most powerful mage had battled the very King of Hell (which was honestly just a fancy expression for a vulcano littered island in the South) in a burning bar, and they all had been swallowed by God themself. (Who, mind you, is actually a vegetarian and would not swallow a bunch of random fighting strangers, just for the record.)

Months later, these rumours would still fill the bar, without a sign of the lost trio. Most would claim that they had died, trying to take over the Soaring Eagle, dutifully protected by Swan who thought much different.

And I can guarantee you, dear reader.

Their story is far from over.

 

\---

 

Futakuchi's back hits the ground with a heavy thump pressing all air from him.

The demon groans next to him, which is the only kind of satisfaction he could possibly get from the fact that his entire being is made up of nausea and disorientation right now. Also, he still smells burned.

Ushijima hits the ground last, soundless. Kind of expected from a person so stoic and unwavering.

With a groan, Futakuchi rolls to his side, concentrating all his resources on keeping the contents of his stomach and fighting the headache buzzing behind his temples.

Oikawa splutters next to him, cursing softly under his breath. Serves that fucker right. Where the hell are they? This isn't a fucking table they had been about to topple into. All around, there is nothing but plains overgrown with wild, high grass. It's probably knee high when a person is standing upright, which Futakuchi is not, because holy _shit_ he's a wreck.

Also, just for the record. All of this does. Not at all look like like the region they come from.

_A fucking portal_ , he thinks, grinding his teeth. _I don't believe we fell into a fucking portal._

He can only hope they didn't land too far from home.

Oikawa is the first to sit up, throwing his head to the side to get his fringe out of his eyes. Fucking ridiculous. Seething, Futakuchi pushes himself up, too, mostly to spite the guy and not make it seem like he is even the slightest bit weaker than him. Which he isn't.

He's better than this guy who has _set him on fire._

"You owe me a new tunic," he forces out, rubbing at his eyes while it feels like the ground is tilting beneath him like a ship at sea.

"That's the first thing coming to mind after we just fell through a portal?" the demon forces out, his voice rough. Now that Futakuchi took a closer look, his horns seem a little short for a demon, and his face to smooth to make him seem really all that intimidating.

"Maybe I'll just take your cape. And you probably owe Ushijima a trip back to his bar."

Futakuchi feels a little taken aback, realising this is the first time he'd said the bartender's name out loud. And that after weeks of finding comfort in his never-ending patience and the taste of his drinks. Without thinking, Futakuchi reaches for the gold band on his ring finger and begins spinning it, a nervous habit he'd picked up ... a while ago.

He sends Ushijima a lingering glance, feeling a little sheepish. He knows how important the no fighting rule is, and yet he went ahead and broke it.

“Nobody touches my cape,” the demon hisses, and. Futakuchi's apology to Ushijima gets stuck in his throat. Staring for a heartbeat longer, suddenly, he's scrambling to Ushijima's side. "He's not breathing," he chokes out, hands fleeting over Ushijima's unmoving body.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"He's not breathing!" Futakuch repeats, all urgency, and he turns on the demon. "This is all your fault!" His voice breaks in his panic. "I don't have my staff on me, I can only do the most rudimentary - !"

"Fuck," the demon curses, sliding towards Ushijima's other side, looking down at him with his jaw working. "I hate the guy but that doesn't mean I can let him die."

"You're despicable," Futakuchi grits out. "Get off, I'll take care of this -"

He spreads his hands, already calling on the magic of the earth from his very core, feeling the tug of it in his veins. The demon gets up, takes a step over Ushijima's unmoving body, and tackles Futakuchi away from him.

With a yelp, Futakuchi begins fighting in earnest, because nobody will keep him from _saving this life_ , but the demon is fighting in earnest now, too, pinning him down with expertise Futakuchi can simply not match, no matter how hard he is struggling.

"You fool," the demon hisses. "Don't you realise?! Your magic will make it worse!"

Futakuchi blinks up at the demon, no malice in those red eyes. No ... they're not quite red anymore, a deep brown now.

"What do you mean?"

"It was the portal! It's the _magic_ that's killing him!"

The realisation hits him hard. His magic would only make things worse, there's - there's nothing he can _do_. The demon lets go of him. "We'll have to do this the old-fashioned way.  And gods do I hate that."

Futakuchi scrambles back up, ignoring the nausea, Ushijima's life much more important. "The old fashioned way?!"

Oikawa kneels down next to Ushijima, heaves a deep sigh. "Mouth to mouth," he explains, like a death sentence, and then he leans down.

  


\---

  


"So I guess we're not taking a portal back home!" Oikawa proclaims cheerfully in the heavy silence. Futakuchi sends him a glare over the fire, Ushijima does not even spare a glance.

He simply keeps poking at the flames. Why exactly they need a fire right now, nobody really knows, but when a man who had just stopped breathing for a little wants to poke at a fire, he will get his damn fire.

Futakuchi finds himself sitting a little closer to Ushijima than necessary. He might still be freaked out by the whole thing. It's also strange to see him outside the Soaring Eagle - behind the counter, he didn't even seem like a ... person? More of a fixed point than anything. It was easy to pour out his soul to him.

Now they're sitting next to each other without an inkling of an idea of _where_ they actually exist on the map, and Ushijima is an actual person and he almost just died and Futakuchi ... doesn't know anything about him. He pulls his legs closer to his chest, hugging them and resting his cheek on them, tearing his gaze away from the bartender next to him.

Ushijima hasn't said much, so far.

But he speaks up at last.

"You're both banned forever from the Soaring Eagle."

"Thank God," Oikawa groans, sounding actually relieved. Futakuchi's head whips back around, staring at Ushijima's profile. His face does not betray anything, stone hard. Of course he won't budge on this.

Shit. Futakuchi just lost his only place to go.

He resists the urge to drop backwards, sprawl out in the grass and look up at the sky until the world seems like a kinder place. Until something changes. The ring burns on his finger, and he bites his lip. "Fair enough," he answers, instead.

Futakuchi is a rational human being. Unlike the damn demon who caused this mess in the first place.

Ushijima nods and gives a small grunt of confirmation.

"And you owe me a fine. And you pay for the way back home."

Futakuchi starts chewing on his lip. He doesn’t want to break whatever fragile peace is between Ushijima and him, so he bites back any snark and simply agrees. The demon, however - well.

"Why would I?! It's your fault in the first place for running such an unsafe bar!"

Ushijima goes rigid, then turns toward the demon slowly. Futakuchi's lip quirks up as he sees the demon freeze in turn, definitely wary of the human before him.

"An unsafe bar?" Ushijima repeats dangerously. "Say that to my face."

"I just did," the demon replies, still looking like he slightly regrets starting this. Futakuchi is having the absolute highlight of his evening post portal drop.

"I have a fire extinguisher in every _corner of my bar_. I had an expensive anti-magic spell put over the storage room for the weapons the guests must leave outside. I have _three_ safety exits, with fairy lights leading towards them in case the electricity goes out. There is a shower in case of any accidents with acids, a safety net under the trapdoors. And you go and call _my_ bar unsafe?!"

"Jeez," the demon curses. "Please calm down, Ushiwaka-chan. This talk is so boring I'm gonna fall asleep. At least I can tell my mother you're already married to your bar, now."

Ushijima wrinkles his nose. "That's not my name. Besides, why would your mother care?"

The demon scoffs. The fire keeps crackling. Futakuchi wonders where on earth they are, but he also finds himself wondering why the demon's mother wants to know about Ushijima's availability for marriage.

"She thinks I should find someone to marry," the demon answers, waving his hand dismissively. "Someone like that nice, reliable guy running the bar." He starts making gagging noises that sound disgustingly real and are exaggerated in every way. "As if! So yeah, now I can tell her I tried and you're unavailable. Thank God. I'd rather marry one of those gargoyles than someone like you."

"George is already married with children," Ushijima replies, “So you won't have any luck courting him.” Futakuchi can't believe that's his only reaction to the rant. Will he just let all the insults go unchided? Probably. Futakuchi feels to tried to join the talk, so he just starts spinning his ring again.

"You're so dense it's actually almost amusing," the demon replies brightly. “I pity whoever will marry you someday.”

"Marriage is overrated," Futakuchi mutters, not expecting anyone to hear him, but suddenly two pairs of eyes are on him. He feels put on the spot, and hides his right hand behind his thigh.

"Jee, not so overly enthusiastic, you'll tire me out!” the demon replies. He's so annoying, Futakuchi wants to punch him again. “But yeah, just my saying~ It's totally overrated."

Ushijima's gaze on him lingers, and Futakuchi swallows, _painfully_ aware again just how much he had told Ushijima over drinks during the past few weeks. He .. he'd never expected to be actually forced to spend time with him like this.

To be stranded God knows where.

"Can we change the topic?” Futakuchi groans, settling to be the voice of reason. “Maybe we could start thinking about _how_ we’re gonna make it _home.”_

“Shut up,” the demon spits, and Futakuchi bristles.

“What the hell is your problem?!”

“Shut. Up!” The demon gestures, sharp and fast, then rests a finger to his lips and closes his eyes, intently listening. Boiling, Futakuchi clenches his fists in his lap and waits. He’s just about to snap again and demand an explanation, when the demon’s eyes fly open. “Unicorns,” he gasps.

Futakuchi gapes at him, Ushijima freezes where he sits.

“Rabid ones!” The demon scrambles to his feet. “We need to run!”

“You’re shitting me.” _Unicorns?!_ Those only _exist_ in the outer edges of the realm, on that one lonely ass island that’s an overlooked dot on the map because it’s nothing but - grass and dangerous wildlife.

Holy fuck.

“How do you stand against a unicorn?” Ushijima asks earnestly, clenching and unclenching his fists as if preparing for a battle.

“You don’t!” Futakuchi yells, the second Oikawa hisses: “Pick a God and pray?! One of those fuckers would be bad enough, but this is an _entire herd.”_

“If this is a prank -” Futakuchi begins, but then he can feel the ground tremble beneath them. There’s a faint rumble in the distance making his stomach drop.

Unicorns. Actual, real unicorns. Futakuchi's blood runs cold. He's seen drawings depicting the gruesome creatures, all red-eyed, tangled dark-blue fur and a horn as sharp as a spear, most times still with some poor creature stuck on it. They are huge, all bulging muscle and deadly in so many ways - from their sharp teeth to their habit to trample down any and all creatures in their path. The rumbling intensifies, and Futakuchi's head whips around, desperately searching.

_The only way to handle encountering a unicorn is either excellent offensive magic, finding refuge on a tree/rock/steep hill, or embracing certain death,_ that's what the books say.

Magic wouldn't do _shit_ against an entire herd and with Ushijima fucking allergic to it, not to mention his staff still leaning in a hut next to the Soaring Eagle at the other end of the _world –_ and there is literally nothing _but_ grass around as far as they can _see_.

"Personally, I'm not ready to embrace certain death," Futakuchi mutters, staring blankly ahead as the black wave on the horizon comes into view. It is an entire fucking herd, and he's already terrified from just the shadows in the distance. They're fast.

Faster than any creature.

(They have six legs for a reason.)

"Good call!" the demon replies. "Me neither! So, you sweethearts better get the fuck up and _start running_."

That's exactly what they do, because what the fuck else is there to do, and giving in to the urge to flee is at least a little satisfying.

"We can't outrun them! They're unicorns!" Ushijima shouts. The grass is whipping against Futakuchi's legs, driving him nuts, but he keeps pushing on, heart racing.

"No shit!" the demon replies.

"There's no trees here!" Futakuchi curses.

"You guys were _born to be detectives_!" The demon sounds stressed as hell now. Futakuchi can understand that. He's more terrified than _ever before._ And he really doesn't want to die here. Not like this. Not trampled by unicorns on the most southern island there was. What the hell. He's never even made it past the boundaries of Datekou until today.

This must be a bad joke.

"We need a plan!"

The rumbling keeps intensifying. Futakuchi makes the mistake of looking over his shoulder. He catches the eye of one of the unicorns, glowing a deep, unnatural shade of purple. It opens its mouth and makes a noise that, even across the distance, makes him scream and put his hands over his ears. He squeezes his eyes shut, tripping as he runs. A strong arm wraps around his biceps, drags him upright and forwards. The hammering of Futakuchi's heart and the terror is enough to push him forward.

He never wants to hear a noise like that again.

He doesn't want to _die._

"Plan!" The demon shouts. "You two, run like hell!"

"What about you?!" Ushijima shouts back, breath ragged by now. The grass whipping against his shins keeps driving Futakuchi insane and yet he keeps sprinting through it faster than he's ever run in his entire life. His lungs are burning.

Futakuchi never thought he'd say that, but -"We're not leaving you!"

"Stop acting heroic, that's my part!" What the fuck is wrong with that demon, really.

The rumble has turned louder, the screams of the combined herd filling the air. There's probably tears running down Futakuchi's face from how horrible it sounds. He's never been more terrified in his life and this stupid demon is talking about being heroic.

And then.

The demon _fucking_.

Stops running.

Futakuchi would have kept sprinting, he's not kidding. But Ushijima stays back, feet planted to the ground the second the demon stopped.

"You asshole, run!" The demon hisses, and Futakuchi agrees with the notion whole heartedly. His muscles burn even worse now that he's stopped, desperately jogging back. He's considering grabbing for Ushijima's arm and tugging.

"Not without you," he tells a demon who has done nothing but bringt them trouble all day. Hell, why does he have to be so damn _good._

The demon throws his hands in the air, his eyes entirely red, irises like boiling lava. If Futakuchi wasn't facing certain death by impalement/being trampled, he'd be fascinated enough to keep watching the glowing cracks shift. Even when it's that asshole demon. Alas, he is facing _certain death_ and from where he stands he can _see_ the fucking sea of unicorns coming ever closer. Their eyes all glow different shades. Futakuchi briefly wonders why the books left that out, then he realises that most people don't survive an encounter. Especially not with an entire herd.

"What do all living creatures fear?!"

"Stock taking," Ushijima replies immediately.

The demon devotes time to an unimpressed stare before Futakuchi gets his attention back by clearing his throat. With a snap of his fingers, the demon conjures some sparks. "Fire," he answers, voice a deep rumble.

Futakuchi's eyes widen. He realises, tugging at Ushijima immediately. This is going to be huge, and Ushijima has already almost _died_ at the hands of powerful magic today.

"Run!"

Finally convinced by their reasoning, Ushijima turns around and does just that.

"You, too," the demon hisses.

"No dice, demon. This is huge. I'm a white mage. Even without my 'ridiculous wood stick' I can assist you."

Futakuchi holds eye contact, even though the red glow of the demon's eyes is incredibly intimidating as he starts glowing with his magic unravelling. The hooves on the plains ahead sound like thunder. No, he's never been more scared before in his life.

"My name's Oikawa," the demon replies, voice raised over the noise. "And I sure hope Ushiwaka runs fast!"

"Futakuchi!" he shouts back, because he doesn't want to die alongside someone who doesn't even know his name. "Give me your hand!"

Oikawa doesn't have the breath to spare for a dumb comment. His grip is strong.

"Do your worst."

"I plan to," Futakuchi growls. He turns his back on the unicorns, so close he could see the dried blood on the white of their horns. Oikawa will have to take care of them while Futakuchi checks how far Ushijima has gotten. Not as far as he'd like to, but -

"Light this up and flare it wide!"

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Oikawa's entire body glowing dark red. As Futakuchi calls upon his own power, the tug on his core is less from the Earth and more Oikawa demanding and eating up every last ounce Futakuchi is willing to give. It feels like someone forcefully drawing blood from his veins. He clenches his teeth.

"V for victory!" Oikawa cheers, and Futakuchi has time to think: _How lame_ , then Oikawa raises their joined hands.

The unicorns are so close the thunder is vibrating all through Futakuchi. Threatened and about to be sucked of all energy he has, he feels like passing out, falling to his knees. But he keeps his eyes fixed on where Ushijima is running, not turning once, whole-heartedly trusting in them to have his back.

With an even louder rumble, a wall of flames erupts around them. Its heat makes the air thin and hard to breathe. Eyes burning, Futakuchi squints into its brightness. They're caught at the very tip of the V, and it flares wide, leaving as much space around Ushijima as possible. The herd erupts around them, split into two.

Through the wall of flames, Futakuchi can see their shuddering shadows pass by. The rumbling is so loud he feels like he might go deaf. Ushijima stopped running in the distance, simply staring.

They all do.

His name is Futakuchi Kenji, he's a mediocre white mage, and here he stands, hand clasped tightly with of a blazing demon, surrounded by a wall literally made out of dancing fire as an entire herd of the most terrifying creatures known splits around them. He's never felt so powerful in his life.

It's a breathtaking experience. He's exhausted to the bone, but hyped up on adrenaline like he's never tasted before. Oikawa turns, catches his eye, his grin wide and unabashed and with sharp, manic glee. Futakuchi grins back, wide and proud, all conflict forgotten.

This is fucking fantastic.

The adrenaline and triumph keeps them going through the strain as the herd gallops past them. Only when the thunder of hooves has long subsided do they lower their hands. The second Oikawa lets go of him and the hungry connection which had sucked the energy from him cuts off, Futakuchi falls to his knees, bracing himself on his palms. He's so dizzy he can feel himself tilting to the side, but Oikawa is there, catching him, keeping him upright.

"You alright?"

"Sure," Futakuchi replies. His tongue feels numb. Is that the taste of blood in his mouth?

"Your nose is bleeding."

"I'm peachy."

"You're quite something, Mr. Whitemage."

What a ridiculous nickname.

"We stood against an entire herd of unicorns," Futakuchi chokes out, still drunk on the experience. Oikawa laughs - not condescending or faux as any of his laughter before. It rings true and bright and clear, and that side of the demon, Futakuchi might even like it.

"We make one hell of a team. Let's go check up on that annoying bartender, though. Gotta make sure I don't have to get anywhere as close to him as I was forced to before."

"He's not that bad," Futakuchi mumbles, trying to push himself to his feet.

"Hope you didn't plan on keeping your dignity," Oikawa says casually, before he mandhandles Futakuchi into a position from which he can lift him on his back.

A demon is gonna piggyback him. Wow. 

"Not that you could have much dignity to begin with, if you think  Ushiwaka isn't that bad."

Futakuchi tries to lightly slap Oikawa, but feels a little too weak for that. Shit. He closes his eyes and surrenders his dignity when he puts his chin on the demon's shoulder and allows him to carry him.

"I'm a pretty great demon, but I couldn't have managed that without your help, as much as I hate to admit that, and never will again, just so you know."

"You're an arrogant prick," Futakuchi mutters.

"And I hate your guts!" Oikawa sing-songs.

Even as a demon carries him across the scorched grassland on fucking rabid pony island, Futakuchi finds he hates his life much less than usual. Maybe not at all.

Ushijima jogs towards them, clearly trying his hardest, but definitely dazed by the magic. Futakuchi knows that feeling. He _feels_ that feeling. Holy shit, he's never used more magic before in his life. Actually, channelling a demon was one of the first lessons taught to never, ever try - because of their greed and disregard for the life connected to that energy they were taking.

Futakuchi can't tell if Oikawa even paid attention at all, but their definite goal had been survival of everyone, so screw the textbooks. Those also claimed all unicorns had red eyes. What bullshit.

He'll punch those textbook writing people once he gets the chance to.

Ushijima catches up to them, and when he opens his mouth, Futakuchi expects cheer, praise, some kind of 'hey cool we're not dead'. Not an accusing "You burned most of the grass."

Oikawa is so offended he drops Futakuchi.

Lying in the grass, head spinning and still tasting blood, Futakuchi blinks up at the sky above and starts laughing. So hard, tears form in the corners of his eyes and he's reaching up to hold his stomach, even with his now-numb hand. He keeps laughing until he passes out right in the grass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it only gets wilder from here. 
> 
> Honestly, I could write another 30k on the writing process of this fic. Never have I witnessed something as wild and insane as the past six days and nights, and I wouldn't have managed without my bff holding my hand, inspiring me and helping to shape the plot. Thanks for being my co-pilot <3
> 
> Tune in next week for Oikawa Tooru giving horrible life advice, oyster wrestling, and more cheesy one-liners!


	2. Ticket to accidental marriage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Futakuchi finds the whackiest ways to make friends for life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The journey continues to be wild.

Ushijima has made a fire again, and night has fallen.

Futakuchi is finally awake enough to feel the strain of the magic he's worked in his entire body, muscles burning and aching from fatigue. Oikawa catches his gaze across the fire, and there's still an echo of that glint that had been in his eyes as they'd worked their magic. They've done something incredible together.

Futakuchi, torn between glaring and grinning back, does both, and Oikawa laughs, and Ushijima looks between them with his brows furrowed in confusion.

"So, now we at least now where we are," Futakuchi says, eventually.

"That's something,” Oikawa admits, before sending Ushijima a pointed glare. “Yet, thanks to Mr. Allergic here, we can't even get home with magic. We'll literally have to hike through about seven different countries, and that's when we take the straight way home and march right through the Wasteland of Howls. Which, by the way, what kind of dumb name is that? It doesn't make any sense."

"Not many country names make sense," Ushijima points out. "There are countries named after the family ruling them."

"Nobody asked you," Oikawa replies, gloomily.

Futakuchi isn't sure whether to be amused or kick his shin, when his gaze falls down to his hand, which is still feeling ... a little uncomfortably warm. His mouth falls open.

"What the fuck is this," he demands to know, gesturing wildly at the strange, zig-zagging red across his right hand. His voice might have gotten away from him a little.

Oikawa raises his own hand, the one that had sealed their connection, wriggling his fingers. White swirls wrap around it, in pattern almost like blossoms on his skin. "We're matching now," he declares, his mouth closing into a pout. "I would've preferred a cooler tattoo."

"No. No! That's not how it works! This looks horrible, magic isn't supposed to -"

"The magic we worked was powerful enough to ward off unicorns who are occasionally known to feed of smaller fires," Oikawa reminds him. "We were exceptional, it left a mark. Yours is cooler cause it has my handwriting, so be grateful. Mine looks better on me, though." Oikawa sticks his fingers up in a victory sign and his tongue out, and he looks so much like a child in that second that Futakuchi wonders if he's really the very same demon who helped him ward off rabid unicorns.

"I don't think it looks bad," Ushijima says, quietly, brushing his fingertips across the pattern without thinking. Futakuchi holds his breath. Ushijima touches the ring on his finger, and pulls his hand back like he burned himself.

Oikawa groans, and cheeks burning, Futakuchi is grateful that the noisy demon snatches his attention quickly.

"We need to get off this island, find a map, and make a plan," Oikawa declares. "And we need to find something to eat."

At least one of those things doesn't sound impossible.

 

\---

 

"Why is finding food so impossible," Oikawa mutters, the whisper of a broken man.

"Complaints only eat away at your energy," Ushijima informs him, dryly. Oikawa glares at him. Futakuchi stays quiet, because he is the only one actually sane enough to accept the reality of not having had any food for two days straight. His stomach is in knots, he's tired, pissed off, and the red on his right hand shimmers in the sunlight.

What bullshit.

"Is that a hallucination or the sea," Oikawa asks after a while.

"Either it's a collective hallucination or we can go fishing in a bit," Futakuchi replies, picking up speed. Suddenly he's ahead of the group, energy renewed. The sea. Finally. _Finally._ Their way home, their only hope. Filled with delicious fish.

Goodbye death island.

 

\---

 

The harbour of Jouzenji is a hustling, bustling kind of place. Like harbours tend to be, obviously, only a million times more chaotic since the safety standards are much dialled down compared to those of, say, countries like Shiratorizawa.

There's a rowboat next to a yacht next to a literal blue whale, side-eyed by a watersnake nearby which is about thrice the size of the yacht, and, like any watersnake, ready to fight whenever.

A young woman called Misaki Hana has been walking these ports since she was a little girl clinging to her grandma's apron as she followed her across the market, stands and huts huddled anywhere there was space because there is no better way to make money off tourists than to offer anything brightly coloured, delicious smelling or both right next to where they come and go.

As you may imagine, this means a great amount of shouting, flashing signs, miniature fireworks set off across roofs and occasionally causing a small fire quickly extinguished by tired merchants who have done this for decades already.

Undisturbed by the never ending, incredibly vulgar shouting of two rival fishermen who may very well be the modern Romeo and Juliet, only with fish smell and really creative curses, Misaki Hana quickly made her way towards the quieter ends of the ports. A known and beloved spot for merfolk to meet, gossip and charm tourists into all kinds of favours, gifts or deals, she knows, of course, to find her childhood friend exactly in the middle of it.

Terushima his name, the merman in question has caused an uncountable amount of headaches on Misaki's part during her life, but still counts as that kind of asshole friend who will get serious when needed to, and is just protective, loyal and overall entertaining enough to be worth all the arguments she had with her parents about the company she keeps and its bad influence. (It is noteworthy that Misaki is the kind of woman who will rather influence the world around her in a good way than be influenced in a bad way, so those arguments were a little pointless in the first place.)

Now, you can imagine that both Misaki and Terushima, having spent their entire lives as friends and educating each other about any and all things odd and strange happening both under and above the sea, they've had their fair share of frankly ridiculous anecdotes and experiences. Yet, this afternoon should hold a surprise, even for them.

Cradling her basket - bringing juice and Terushima's favourite bread, with a frankly astonishing amount of tomoato sauce sprinkled over it - Misaki plops down on the usual cobblestone, waves lapping up against it, but not quite dousing it in water so she would risk getting her new skirt wet. Terushima abandons the group of tourist girls swamped around a flock of mermen - some of which Misaki recognises, some of which she doesn't - dipping underwater until he shoots out from under the surface right next to her, spraying water on her skirt.

Lips in a frown, Misaki meets his cheerful greetings with a stern expression, until he reaches out for her hand because she does not like hugs when he's utterly dripping and he respects that. Charmed despite herself, she laces her fingers with his in greeting, eyes lighting up.

"Hope you were good while I was gone," she says, knowing he wasn't. Definitely not.

"Oh, you know me, I always am!" Before Misaki can call him out on this ridiculous lie, her mouth already hanging open, she spots a strange boat heading straight towards them. Terushima, fingers still tangled with hers, cranes his neck to follow her confused gaze.

"Huh? What's that?" he asks, voice laced with the usual glee this boy has always found in any and all mysteries.

"Looks strange. You should probably leave it -" With a splash, Terushima is gone. Misaki wipes her wet hand on her shirt and sighs, finishing her sentence even though nobody can hear her: "- be."

So she sits on her stone, basket on her lap, and squints against the sun towards the strange dot heading towards them, trying to figure out what exactly it is.

Meanwhile, Terushima's laughter rings whenever he dips back up, reduced to bubbles when he dives under the surface, shooting through the water before jumping out and doing a clumsy flip in the air for the hell of it, which leaves him awkwardly splashing back into the water sideways. Terushima Yuyi has never been the most talented swimmer among his kind, but nothing can be said about his enthusiasm which stays unrivalled. (And is often times the cause for the aforementioned headaches of his best friend.)

The closer he comes to the strange construction, the more unabashed his laughter gets.

The raft is held together in a way so clumsy it looks like it should have sunk ages ago. He dives deep, swimming three wide circles to admire it from underneath and wondering whether he should give in to his temptation to unravel it and douse the people in it, now that the harbour is in sight. So close, yet so far.

But he knows Misaki wouldn't give him food if he does that, so instead, he dives back up, pops out of the water and leans his crossed arms on the edge, cheerfully asking: "What's going on here?"

"Gods, Spirits, and everything almighty!" one man we know as Futakuchi curses, and the only reason he does not topple backwards into the water is the fact that both his companions in the roughly built raft reach out almost automatically and steady him from both sides.

"Woah, you have horns!" Terushima yelps in delight. "Can I touch them?"

Futakuchi hisses as Oikawa's grip on his arm tightens with his rage. "The second I get to decorate this raft with your scales, you cheeky mermaid!"

Terushima keeps laughing, dips back under, and pops up from the other side. Futakuchi throws himself away from him, forcing Ushijima to lean over to catch him, almost causing the raft to tip over.

"You're one hell of a bunch! Looks like you've been on this ugly raft for ages."

"Two weeks," Oikawa grits out, causing Terushima to gape at him.

"After being attacked by fucking unicorns, an entire herd," Futakuchi adds darkly.

"Which also forced us to destroy wild life," Ushijima adds. Oikawa throws his hands up. " _Oh_ , would you _shut up_ about your _grass!_ I'm sick of it, Ushiwaka! Sick!"

"Well, and I'm sick of that nickname."

Terushima can't stop laughing, far too delighted by these strangers.

"Tell you what," he offers, grin so wide and cheeky that Futakuchi narrows his eyes at him. "I'll drag you to shore so you tired lot can stop rowing, and you can join my friend and me for food – but you gotta tell me everything!"

 

\---

 

"So, Ushiwaka-chan is wrestling the hammerhead, Fu-chan is trying to get a wet plank to function as an actual staff to channel his magic, but he can't get it close to Ushiwaka-chan since it would kill him, and my leg is still stuck in the oyster -"

Oikawa gestures wildly, and Futakuchi rolls his eyes at him, but he's so satisfied with actual food and sane company in form of Misaki that he finds sitting on _actual solid ground_ and hearing a retelling of their journey isn't the worst thing that could have happened.

"Holy shit!" Terushima's eyes are sparkling, the insane merman is the best audience Oikawa has probably ever had. "I honestly can't tell if you guys are shitting me or not but I don't even care, this is so fucking wild, I love it! How the fuck did you survive?!"

"That's the best part! So, Futakuchi here is still waving his plank, cursing everything, when suddenly there's a strong spark of magic, and it hits the oyster. Still kicking wildly I send it flying and hits the hammerhead _and_ Ushijima, and they _both_ go under."

Terushima breaks into hysterical laughter, slapping the stone with his hand, and the water with his tail, splashing wildly so that the water hits his friend again. Misaki sends him a lingering glance, a beautiful masterpiece that is just the right balance of 'are you kidding me right now' and 'I am so beyond done' that Futakuchi feels deep inside his soul.

"It wasn't fucking funny," Futakuchi curses.

"Oh, it was," Oikawa says. Ushijima simply keeps eating his food, mostly ignoring the insanity around him. Futakuchi wishes he had that level of calm and stoic 'I don't give a fuck'.

"So Fu-chan dives right after him, but there's still a hammerhead and semi-paralysed oyster. So I try to be the sensible, amazing and loyal part of this bunch that I am -" Futakuchi snorts, and Oikawa sends him a glare, but keeps going without fail. "And try to look down into the water. That's when Fu-chan dives back up, his beloved Waka in his arms and fleeing from the hammerhead which is absolutely furious because the confused oyster went for its tail now - and Fu-chan just knocks _straight_ into the raft and knocks himself basically unconscious."

Terushiima is laughing so hard he rolls off his stone, backwards into the water. There's a lot of bubbles before he pops back up, now to Misaki's left. The war hardened woman does not even flinch at that. Futakuchi sends Oikawa an unimpressed, lingering stare. Oikawa beams back brightly.

The demon is honestly the worst enemy Futakuchi has ever made. Just like Terushima is the most questionable acquaintance so far. Unless you counted the unicorns, but those were really mostly ... passing through.

"I fuckin' love you guys!" Terushima declares. "Don't you, Misaki?!" He tugs at his friend's wrist, and she sighs, but the way she curls her fingers around his wrists in turn speaks of trust and years spent together, and Futakuchi's mouth runs dry. Jealousy is something he never really had to fight before - not until ...

Life had turned miserable? That was ages ago, wasn't it?

The zigzagging marks on his hands warm up slightly, and Futakuchi feels Oikawa's lingering gaze on him. He scoffs.

"If by that you mean you want to help them along on their journey, Teru, then yeah," Misaki replies. Terushima beams up at her, and she smiles down at her friend, and Futakuchi stares at his feet.

 

\----

 

Their raft gets upgraded. As much as a self-made raft can get upgraded.

They add an inflated extra waggon to hold actual, beautiful, normal food that does not have to be hunted and roasted by a grumpy demon. Misaki’s grandmother is kind enough to put a spell on it to keep it safe from Terushima’s splashing, and that concludes a now five person trip from Jouzenji towards the borders of Wakunan.

Misaki and Terushima will guide them there, then make their journey back in the raft. Well, only Misaki in the raft, unless Terushima would get lazy, which, according to her, he actually might.

Futakuchi doesn’t mind the company (and food) - it keeps his mind off things rather well, which he is in dire need of after seeing that damn harbour with all its countless ships.

Seriously, how does he deserve to have been surrounded by nothing but the sea, for weeks now?

He keeps and keeps spinning his ring, even more than usual.

And Oikawa’s lingering gazes keep up.

\---

 

To Terushima’s utter dismay, the only danger they encounter is Ushijima’s ability to inhale more food than a person should be able to, effectively probably living with a hole in his stomach. Now that there is enough food, he only stops eating that much when an alarmed Misaki calculates that her food rations will be running pretty low on the way back if this keeps up. Ushijima apologises profusely, Misaki is charmed by his sincerity, Terushima splashes Ushijima in turn, Futakuchi might zap his ribs slightly with a light curse before the merman dives back down into the water.

Such is life.  

 

\---

 

Misaki topples into him and presses all air out of him in a tight hug. Futakuchi’s hands come up almost in alarm, and he awkwardly pats her back. The last time he was this close to another human being was when Oikawa had carried him, and back then he’d been pretty much out of it. He’s not used anymore to … physical human contact. That sounds sad, even in his own head.

“You have to write us, you hear! I’ll read all the letters to Teru, he’ll definitely miss you too!”

In the background, Oikawa is yelling and conjuring some flames, and Terushima’s laughter cuts off as he dips underwater. Futakuchi isn’t quite sure about that, but oh well.

“We will, promise.”

“And take care of yourself, you hear!” She lets go of him, suddenly stern. “No wrestling oysters! No more trouble!”

Futakuchi nod stiffly and promises to try his best. (He has a feeling already that promise might be hard to keep, and it will be put to the test just a few hours after their goodbye.)

Misaki smiles at him, nods, and bustles off to hug Ushijima tightly. Futakuchi watches the two, thoughts wandering, and no, no, he’s not imagining what it might feel like to be held like this.

Oikawa is giving him another of his looks and Futakuchi can swear the damn demon can read minds.

“You look like you want to have an idiotic emotional talk and it’s not happening,” Futakuchi snaps, turns on his heel and stalks off to see Misaki and Terushima off.

 

\---

The dumb emotional talk does happen.

It’s mostly because Futakuchi can’t sleep that night, and it makes him end up watching Ushijima’s soft expression as he sleeps, how the dying embers of the fire paint soft glow and shadows over his features. Then he feels creepy, gets up and stalks off to sit at the beach.

Oikawa finds him there, and Futakuchi should’ve known. The demon tends to eventually get the things he wants, if only because he annoys people into giving in.

At first it’s not too bad. Oikawa joins his example, pushes off his shoes and socks, and lets the waves lap at the soles of his feet. There’s that small, genuine smile on his face, and his eyes are soft and brown, and if the silence would have kept up, Futakuchi might have liked that particular evening.

As annoying and nerve grating Oikawa can be, especially if you shared a raft with him for two weeks straight and had to fight the urge to go ahead and push him over every step of the way - he’s actually good company, quiet and with his gaze up to the stars.

Futakuchi keeps staring ahead, where the shimmer of the ocean blends into the soothing dark sky. He’s never been so far from home, never seen so much of the world. Never felt the need to.

But he can’t help but admit that despite hunger, ragged nerves, horrible sleeping arrangements and simultaneously the best and worst company he’s ever spent this much time with - this has been the best time of his life since … he’d still been a kid. That was so long ago. He digs his toes into the cold sand, and heavy melancholy settles over him.

The ocean makes him think of her, and of a so called home that feels less like home than Ushijima’s cooking and Oikawa’s feet shoved into his face at night. It feels so strange, to be the only one of the group with nothing to return to. Trying to hide that from the other two is tiresome.

At least the damn ring is the perfect cover.

“I can feel it, sometimes,” Oikawa says. It startles Futakuchi out of his thoughts, and he stares at Oikawa for any … context of that strange statement. He follows Oikawa’s gaze, down to his right hand, where he started spinning his ring again.

Oh.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You and me, we got a special kind of friendship bracelet.”

Futakuchi wrinkles his nose in disgust. “Don’t call magical marks ‘a special kind of friendship bracelet’. We’re not even friends.”

Oikawa is silent for a little, kicking out his foot with the next wave, sending a splatter of salty drops back into the retreating ocean. The night air is chilly on his skin, and once more Futakuchi wishes he hadn’t declined Misaki’s offer to get him new clothes. Even freshly washed, the blood stains and scorch marks of course have not vanished, and it’s a little too light for Wakunan climate.

Maybe the nostalgia shouldn’t have made him cling to it so desperately, to anything to do with her.

“When powerful magic is worked by two people, it might create a connection. Every demon hatchling and mage apprentice knows that, don’t they?”

“Well, jeez,” Futakuchi replies, turning his hand before his eyes, tracing the lines running across his skin with his gaze. His left hand is unmarked, no rings, nothing. But his right carries more memories than he is able to stand. “'Wait a minute, textbooks warned me about demons and connections!’ wasn’t exactly the first thing on my mind when facing rabid unicorns. Guess we’re stuck now. Maybe it’s less potent once we part ways.”

Oikawa inclines his head. “I guess. For now, I feel it, though. It’s annoying. It itches when you spin and spin that ring of yours. There’s only one thing more annoying.”

Futakuchi sends Oikawa the stinkiest side eye he can muster. It itches? His entire hand grows warm the second Oikawa’s emotions spike or his attention is on Futakuchi. Which happens _all the damn time_. How on earth can a single person pay attention to so much.

“You wanna talk about annoying?! I can tell you a million things annoying, Oikawa Tooru, because you’re the most annoying person I have _ever_ met -”

“The only thing more annoying is whenever I look at you when the itching starts, you’re frowning. This goddamn ring makes you so gloomy, it’s tiresome. Next to Ushiwaka-chan as my travel partner, you’re my only beacon of hope. So what the fuck is up with the ring?”

“What does it look like?” Futakuchi asks, wiggling his fingers as he presents the gold band, catching the moonlight, glinting. It’s so beautiful. Anger is pooling deep inside him, anger he’s always swallowed until now. With Oikawa next to him, Futakuchi has a bad feeling how this talk will end. “I’m married, you fuck.”

“Yeah, and that only drives my point home more,” Oikawa replies. “Marriage is the worst, and I won’t be searching for anyone I _could_ marry, because I _won’t._ This thing makes you more unhappy than anything.”

“What?!” Futakuchi feels defensive, all of a sudden. “No, that’s not it! The wedding actually _was_ one of the greatest days of my life. The ceremony was beautiful and everyone cried and you could never understand the pure beauty of it!”

Oikawa shrugs his shoulders. “I’m not interested in a fleeting memory slowly taken apart by the reality and routine that follows.”

“That’s cause you don’t know how amazing love is!” Futakuchi hisses.

But Oikawa’s reply knocks all breath out of him.

“Do you?”

Futakuchi’s mouth hangs open. He blinks, once, twice. “What do you mean?” That answer is so lame, he cringes at himself. Oikawa’s eyes say he already found what he was looking for.

“I’m trying to figure this out, but you’re not helping. If you don’t tell me more, I’ll just list my assumptions.”

Futakuchi keeps his mouth shut, teeth grinding. He feels stripped of all defenses. Naked. Vulnerable.

_Do you?_

Fuck Oikawa Tooru.

“The person you married is a horrible shitbag, which has warped your senses so much that now you look at Ushiwaka-chan making googly eyes and wishing for his strong arms to hold you at night.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Futakuchi growls.

But Oikawa is just getting started. He sits up straight again, crossing his legs, and extends a second finger to mark his second theory. He keeps tapping on it as he says, in the most cheery and conversational tone: “The person you married is sweet and wonderful and waiting for you at home, and that’s why you feel conflicted about Ushiwaka-chan.”

“Keep him out of this,” Futakuchi hisses. Shame is burning his skin. “And stop talking!” His voice gets away from him, his shout sharp in the quiet of the night. Oikawa’s gaze on him is unwavering, unimpressed.

“The person you married died,” he says, at last, voice flat, searching Futakuchi’s face for a reaction.

Futakuchi scrambles to his feet, and turns to leave.

“Am I right?” Oikawa calls after him. “You need to tell me so I don’t have to keep being an insensitive prick just to find out what the fuck is going on with you.” His voice is laced thick with accusation.

“I never asked you to know _shit_ about me,” Futakuchi hisses, back turned towards the demon.

“But I like knowing things.”

“None of this is your business.”

Sharp pain flares up right under his ring. Mildly panicked, Futakuchi brushes it off his finger to check, dropping it into the sand in his haste. Skin unharmed and pain already subsiding, he turns to pick it up, and sees Oikawa. The fucker had pinched the skin on his own ring finger.

“These friendship bracelets beg to differ, Fu-chan.”

With a huff, Futakuchi picks his ring back up and brushes the wet sand off its smooth surface. “Don’t call me that. Don’t call the marks that, don’t - ! Just, can you stop pretending you’re a part of my life?!”

“I don’t know,” Oikawa says, voice dangerously low as he rises to his feet and gets up in Futakuchi’s face. His eyes burn red. “Can you stop pretending I’m not?”

Futakuchi’s hand curls into a fist, ready to throw a punch at the demon like he did weeks ago in the bar. The ring is digging into his skin.

“She became a pirate.”

Oikawa blinks. Clearly he anticipated the blow, too. “A pirate?”

Futakuchi sighs, and all energy seems to leave him. He sinks back down into the sand, all the fatigue he’s felt since Nametsu left suddenly catching up to him. Maybe hiding it had tired him out more than he would’ve expected. Frustration gnawing at him, he picks up a shell nearby and flings it a ridiculously short distance away, thanks to him being tired as fuck.

“So she left you?” Oikawa asks, his voice different, softer, as he sits down next to him. Futakuchi didn’t know he could be this … nice. Ew. He can’t believe he’s having a moment with Oikawa Tooru.

“Yeah. I … shouldn’t have been surprised. She mostly married me to get her strict parents off her back, but I -” There’s too many words piling at his tongue he can’t say, can’t tell anyone, wouldn’t want to lay bare. “Didn’t mind, at the time. The … idea of us didn’t seem so bad.”

“But it was.”

“Will you shut up and let me tell my sob story?” Futakuchi grumbles.

“You’re not exactly a good story teller, to be honest.”

“I swear to the gods, Oikawa, I’m gonna punch you.”

“And I’d deserve it. Keep going.”

“Ugh!” Futakuchi throws his hands up in the air, still fighting the anger bubbling inside him. Oikawa’s like oil into a flame, which doesn’t make it easier. “Of course it was a horrible fucking idea. I appreciated her, and I wanted to make it work, and I tried, but she got tired of that life – I think she always was. And then she left to become a pirate.”

“How do you know she’s a pirate? Maybe she just fell into a ditch.”

Futakuchi can feel his lips curl into a smile. “She’s Nametsu,” he says, for the first time in a long while feeling the affection he used to. “Of course she’ll reach whatever goal she has in mind. She’s probably a captain with her very own crew now.”

Oikawa’s eyebrows furrow. “That sounds pretty kickass. Makes it a little harder to hate that bitch.”

“Don’t call my wife a bitch!”

Oikawa smacks his hands down in the sand next to him. “She married you as an escape, played with your heart and left you!”

“She was a sweet and gentle woman who longed to loot and bomb shit up!”

“I fucking hate how kickass that sounds,” Oikawa curses.

“Me too,” Futakuchi agrees. He eases his grip on the ring, leaving it resting in his palm for now. It’s strange, how reluctant he is to put it back on his finger, now that he had slipped it off for the first time since … Nametsu pushed it on his finger? God, it feels like so long ago. In another life, probably. He honestly wasn’t unhappy, back then.

It had felt so much less lonely with the weight of the ring and its promise on his finger.

“But why’re you so sad? Why aren’t you angry?”

“I _am_ angry.” Wow, that sounded listless and lame even to his own ears.

Oikawa gives him an unimpressed stare. “Did you set her shit on fire?”

“Of course not! Who would do something like that?!”

“Did you curse her and call her names, at least?!”

“No,” Futakuchi grumbles. “I have honour.”

“You have no backbone! I don’t care for her reasons, she still treated you like shit,and you should be angry, not spinning that fucking ring on your finger while looking like a gloomy pretentious vampire teen in their scene phase!”

This is not how he meant tonight to go. “God, you’re so fucking annoying,” Futakuchi tells Oikawa, shuffling backwards and away from the aura the demon emits. _He_ certainly has that anger part down. Why the fuck would the demon be so angry on his behalf?!

“ _You_ annoy _me,”_ Oikawa growls, the red glow of his eyes only intensifying. “You _fooled_ me into thinking you _weren’t_ a boneless goody-two-shoes!”

“I’m not!” Futakuchi shouts back, honestly on edge. “What the fuck is your problem!”

“What’s yours!” They both scramble to their feet, almost in synch, unwilling to let the other hover over them. “What the fuck, Fu-chan, you just let people push you around?!”

“She didn’t push me around! I don't let anyone push me around!”

Oikawa gets up in his face, makes a great show of lifting his hands, and then knocks them against Futakuchi’s shoulders, pushing him backwards. “Well, I am pushing you around right now! What’re you gonna do about it?! Sit there and take it, too?!”

“Oh, you fucker,” Futakuchi growls. “You didn’t.”

He swings, but Oikawa dodges, light on his feet.

“Yes I did! So what? You’re angry at me, aren’t you?!”

“I want to fucking grab your horns and throw you over my shoulder into the sand, you bastard! Or better – into the ocean, you walking candle!”

Oikawa grins at him, his eyes glinting with manic glee. “That’s the spirit, Fu-chan!”

“Don’t! Fucking! Call me that!”

He swings again, and Oikawa dodges once more, dancing backwards, forcing Futakuchi to follow him. Rage is filling every _ounce_ of his body. It’s pumping through his veins, heightening his senses. His lungs fill with air and each time he exhales, more strength fills his muscles. Futakuchi feels ready to tear an entire tree out by the roots and smack Oikawa with it.

Most of all, he feels alive.

It feels so great he has to bite back surprised laughter, not ready yet to let go of his destructive energy.

“You’re a fucking prick! And I hate your guts! And you know the saddest part?!” He’s screaming at the top of his lungs at Oikawa, who only eggs him on and replies just as loudly.

“What?! Tell me!”

“I’ve never had more fun in my life!” Futakuchi screams.

“That’s really fucking pathetic!” Oikawa screams back, and Futakuchi’s next punch finally connects with a satisfying crack.

“Holy shit, throwing punches hurts,” he mutters under his breath, working some subtle magic to ease the sting to his knuckles.

“You tell me!” Oikawa complains, wincing as he carefully checks the damage.

“This feels _fantastic_ ,” Futakuchi mutters, taken aback and delighted. “I should pick fights more often, fuck, I feel like I could swim the entire way home right here and now.”

“Maybe don’t,” Oikawa advises as if Futakuchi _needed_ to hear that, wow. “And _now_ tell me what you think about what Nametsu did.”

The thought catches on something, but the softness and sadness has no room in a body ablaze with fury. The ring still in his palm suddenly burns it, and Futakuchi is so angry. He remembers returning back to what he tried to make a home, empty but for a letter. Curling up alone and feeling like it was his fault for not being enough, and all the doubts, and how the loneliness had been worse than ever.

“You know WHAT!” he screams. “If you love the ocean so much, you should’ve married it instead, you ungrateful cow!”

And he reaches behind himself, then flings the ring as far into the ocean as it will go, with so much force his wrist and shoulder ache. Gaping, he watches the arc of the ring before it sinks into the water with a muffled little plop and vanishes.

“Holy shit,” Oikawa says, staring at him. “Well, that was worth taking a punch to the face for.”

“I just threw my wedding ring into the fucking ocean,” Futakuchi yelps, clutching his head, fingers digging into his scalp. He spins in a half circle to look at Oikawa helplessly. “What did I do?!”

“Something _amazing_ ,” Oikawa stresses, and they stare at each other, still a little breathless in the shock.

And then they burst into laughter. Futakuchi doubles over, clutching his stomach. It’s as bad as back after the unicorn attack, only he doesn’t pass out. He keeps laughing and laughing until he’s lying sideways in the sand and Oikawa is toppled over, too, and he’ll complain about all the fucking sand on his clothes all day tomorrow when they start their hike through the small country, but who the fuck cares right now.

“Holy shit,” Futakuchi wheezes, wiping at his eyes. His stomach hurts and he feels boneless from all the laughing.

“Holy shit.” The same words - but Oikawa sounds much, _much_ different than him. Grave and terrified. Uh. Futakuchi pushes himself up, narrowing his eyes at his friend, who stares with his mouth hanging open at something behind him. Slowly, dread already curling in his stomach, Futakuchi turns around. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Eight eyes blink at him, glowing yellow, just above the surface. With a great ruckus a gigantic body keeps emerging from the waves, crusted over with shells and algae over rough skin glistening in the moonlight. It’s a sight Futakuchi could’ve lived without.

“Run!” Oikawa screams, scrambling to his feet and grabbing Futakuchi’s collar to drag him along, but something catches his attention.

Something that looks like a frankly horrifying morph between a tentacle and an actual arm slithers towards them across the sand, politely stopping just before them. Oikawa gives a horrified squawk, but Futakuchi’s gaze is torn to the soft, round glint offered by that … well, whatever it was. Probably some kind of seamonster.

It’s his ring.

“Gimme a second,” he tells Oikawa, yanking himself free.

“Don’t touch that!” the demon screeches, taking two more steps backwards.

Futakuchi carefully reaches out, grasping the ring with his fingertips. “Thank you,” he says, politely, because being polite to a monster is probably a good idea.

Or maybe it wasn’t.

Because two more of the arm/tentacle _whatevers_ shoot out, wrap around him, and drag him off the beach, lift him across the ocean, and straight into a mouth littered with so many sharp teeth Futakuchi is in too much terror to even scream.

 

\---

 

“A fucking seamonster just ate your boyfriend so you better wake the fuck up!”

There’s three sharp kicks to his ribs and with a growl, Ushijima sits up. “I’m up and clearly awake, why are you _still_ kicking me?!”

“Stress relief. _Get up._ Properly! Fu-chan might’ve died!”

“He doesn’t like you calling him that,” Ushijima says, almost mechanically. Futakuchi had gotten eaten? This had to be a dream. A really bad one. “Are you sure you’re not hallucinating?”

Oikawa makes a noise that is too high-pitched. “You asshole, of course I just hallucinated that fucking monster! It’s _still there_ so if you could _move_ we could -”

Ushijima’s finally on his feet, marching off into the direction of the sea. That’s where a seamonster probably is. Oikawa’s quick to catch up with him, his mouth still running. He’s rarely ever quiet, and most things he says in five sentences could be condensed into one. Most times Ushijima actually kind of appreciates that, right now he doesn’t. He’s tired and his favourite customer apparently just got eaten.

Unacceptable.

“What do you even plan to do?!” Oikawa demands to know. How does he even still have air after his tirade? “Throw stuff at the monster until it gives us Fu-chan back?!”

 

\---

 

His left boot does the trick.

Oikawa huffs and puffs but agreed to add some sparks, and the blazing footwear describes a perfect arc and hits the monster right between the eyes, causing an angry wail loud enough to have Oikawa wail, too, and topple over with his hands over his ears.

Ushijima is running the Soaring Eagle. He needs worse noise to be impressed.

“Monster!” he demands, his voice loud enough to carry across the waves. “Give him back!”

Utter silence. Then, with a rumble that runs so deep under his skin it’s bone-grating, a voice echoes across the sea and beach around, scaring off a flock of seagull sized dragons who take flight into the sky. “He gave me a ring. He is my husband now.”

Oikawa buries his face in his hands and hisses “I don’t believe this” into his palms.

Ushijima turns towards the demon. “Why did Futakuchi give this monster his ring and agreed to marry it?”

“How dense are you?! Obviously he didn’t! He only threw his ring into the ocean!”

“So Futakuchi did not want to marry the seamonster?”

“ _No,”_ Oikawa hisses.

Ushijima nods. This is quite perfect, since Oikawa is on his search for a suitor anyways. He extends his arm to point at him and raises his voice so the monster may hear. “Take him instead!”

“What the fuck is your problem!” Oikawa hisses. He hisses a lot. It’s probably a demon thing. “You can’t just sell me to a monster in exchange for Fu-chan, what kind of ruthless plan is this?!”

The voice rumbles again, this time with no more wildlife to frighten away. “I don’t want him.”

“What!” Oikawa marches knee-deep into the water, hands on his hips. “Say that to my face, monster! Why wouldn’t you want me?!”

The monster keeps quiet, and Ushijima doesn’t have the time to suggest possible reasons.

“If we find you someone else, will you let him go?!” he demands to know.

There’s a stretching silence, only filled by more of Oikawa’s pretty pointless accusations and self advertisement.

“Maybe,” is the final comment of the seamonster, and then it submerges, with the unwilling husband supposedly still unharmed. Well, that’s all Ushijima needs to know for now. Clenching his fists at his sides, a little surprised by the sharp sting of … whatever it is that he feels, he settles to _get moving._ Moping doesn't bring people back.

“Let’s go,” Ushijima says, and starts off along the shore.

“Where the fuck are we going?!” A pause. Oikawa sighs in defeat. “I can’t believe we have to find a date for a seamonster to get your boyfriend back.”

 

\---

 

Despite the sharp claws, rough skin, multiple eyes with an eery glow to them, terrifying limbs, fins, and frankly bad breath, the seamonster which currently holds our slightly frustrated, slightly beyond terrified white mage hostage is, even though it might not seem like it, a very lonely, fragile and currently absolutely delighted soul.

As you _may_ imagine, Futakuchi is a little less delighted as he finds himself in a dark cave, fluid of unknown nature feeling disgustingly slick under his bare feet, and with no orientation whatsoever. His state of terror makes conjuring any kind of magic hard, but at least he can cup a soft ball of white light in his hands and hold it up to look around.

What he sees are walls that look wet and fleshy, and a way out blocked by saber sharp teeth locked together.

“Oh, just peachy,” he mutters. This is what he gets for listening to Oikawa. This is what he gets for flinging his wedding ring away and insulting Nametsu. Ungrateful cow? That was harsh. He spat Karma in the face, and Karma rose to the challenge and made him vanish into a monster’s face.

That’s what he’s thinking, at least, feeling quite hopeless. He has no idea that outside, his travel companions have started a search for a date, and that there’s a monster practically vibrating with excitement to finally get to talk to him.

The name of the monster is Aone Takanobu, and his appearance masks the lonely heart inside of him, thumping with hopes of finally finding someone who would not recoil in terror and flee. Granted, that was mostly assured by holding the man captive right now. But that’s exactly why Aone is so excited to meet him in his humanoid form and speak to him.

The mothers of monsters – their parents in general - you see, are a little neglectful in the whole nurturing part. The general job of a monster is quite clear - feed, survive, strive. Anyone too weak is considered a lost cause in the first place. Thus, Aone had never really been granted much kindness, education, or contact in general. Most monsters could walk among the humans just fine and learned that way, but even his humanoid form terrified people. Hurt, confused, and tired of trying, eventually, he had simply stayed in the ocean or his cave.

Until this fateful night where the unknown man had thrown the gold ring.

You see, due to his uprising of course Aone has not gathered much about the concept of marriage, but this much he knows: it is a lifelong promise to stay together. To him, it means the end of his loneliness, forever.

In fact, he is so giddy, he slightly misses the cave entrance, narrow for a monster of his size. His left side crashes into the rock and tears it down with its momentum, which is the moment Futakuchi gets flung across his mouth and curses up a storm as he struggles back to his feet. Fortunately it also marks having arrived at the destination, so the sharp row of teeth opens to a flash of light that might be dim, but is definitely blinding to him. Without hesitation, Futakuchi scrambles forwards, ready to rip his skin open climbing those teeth if he has to. But Aone is careful to lift him across them and place him on safe stone grounds as gently as possible.

Futakuchi leans his head back, taking in the cave - it is quite the sight, impossibly wide, all its walls ran through with veins of Glowing Amber, a special gemstone which is not quite amber, but glowing the same colour, painting it all in warm light. There’s roughly woven carpets on the ground, a little fireplace, and what looks like a bed. It’s surprisingly cozy.

When he turns around, the monster is gone. In its place stands a man, face not betraying any emotion. His hair is short, almost white. He’s wearing a loin cloth, the belt on it adorned with shells, and his chest is bare, not leaving much to the imagination.

Well.

“Who are you?” Futakuchi asks, eyes narrowed.

The strange man takes two steps forward, bowing deeply as he extends his hand and offers … the ring he hadn’t let Futakuchi take earlier. Maybe he hadn’t misheard the booming words, then? Is he supposed to become the husband of loincloth guy?

“Listen, that’s … no offense, but I’m drenched in your monster saliva, you just abducted me, your silence is freaking me out a little, and tonight has been a draining rollercoaster that also caused me to get rid of that ring.”

When the monster stands tall again, his expression has changed. Is Futakuchi imagining it or does he look … ? It looks a little bit like a pout. There’s something in his eyes. Aw, damn. He’s not supposed to feel bad for a monster who just took him away in the middle of the night to make him a husband.

The strange … man, monster, kind of both slips the ring into a pocket and gestures at Futakuchi to follow. Hesitating, looking behind him and realising that the cave is too high up for him to get out of here without the monster’s help, he figures it can’t really get worse.

And maybe it’s just horrible misinterpretation, but there was something in those eyes that tugged at his heart strings, and damn. He’s really gotten too soft. So he follows the man through a narrow tunnel, until they emerge in a cozy little chamber with a round basin in the middle. It’s warmer in here than outside, and Futakuchi only realises how cold he really was when the warmth envelops him, rising goosebumps on his skin.

The monster raises one finger as if asking him to wait and vanishes. Futakuchi waits, tries to enjoy the warmth on his cold, clammy skin and not worry about what on earth is going to happen to him. When the strange, silent man returns, he carries a bundle of what looks like clothes and towels, and Futakuchi takes it from him in utter confusion.

The man bows deeply again, and then makes a big show of leaving him alone, gesturing to make clear that he intends to leave him alone.

Futakuchi doesn’t trust the peace. He sets the bundle back down, waits a few breathless seconds, then tiptoes silently towards the corner, quickly whipping around it to catch any kind of peeking. Nothing. The tunnel is empty, he’s alone.

Feeling uncomfortable, but definitely tempted by a hot bath, he waits uneasily for something, anything.

No sign of the man.

Oh, well. In the end he gives in, strips off the ruined clothes he has really only kept because Nametsu told him they bring out his eyes and she liked them, and sinks into the bath until the water reaches over his mouth.

He sighs, blowing bubbles, as he feels his tense muscles relax. The water is hot, and it takes him a minute to get used to it, but then it’s _perfect._ Futakuchi closes his eyes and can feel the steam and heat take away the tension. When he opens his eyes back up, he notices a little bowl sitting at the edge, clearly self-made with clumsy hands, littered with green cubes. Soap?

After these weeks of rough travel and being surrounded by men reeking as badly as him, actual soap is a heaven sent gift, and figuring it’s fair enough since he got abducted and all, he uses a ridiculous amount of it to scrub every inch of his skin. It burns slightly, but Futakuchi doesn’t mind - he feels so clean and warm, like he’s been born anew.

When he finally decides it’s time to emerge before he grows gills, Futakuchi wraps himself in the big, surprisingly soft towel and examines the clothes he’d discarded earlier. Now that he feels this clean, it would almost be a sin to put on the reeking, drenched, burned and blood stained clothes from before, even though he’s not really feeling the loincloth aesthetic.

But what he finds is a soft, cream coloured shirt and wide blue pants that are a little too big on him, but fortunately there's a similar shell adorned belt to keep it up on his hips. Like the towel before, the clothes are surprisingly soft on his skin.

Honestly, Futakuchi feels amazing.

There’s a pair of woven sandals, too, and he slips into them to make his way back towards the main cave, which he spends trying to figure out whether to thank the man or treat the gifts he received as the least one could do to make the whole abduction thing up to him.

He’s still a little torn when he sees the man sitting cross-legged at the fire, meeting his gaze with an expression that Futakuchi would almost call a smile. It looks a lot more friendly than the expressions before - a lot more sheepish, too. But maybe he’s just imagining things.

“So …” he begins, feeling a little awkward with the wet towel and ruined clothes in his hands. “Kidnapping me was a dick move, but thanks for the clothes. They’re really comfortable.”

The man gestures at him to take a seat, and Futakuchi decides that the pillow is a better alternative than sitting down in some cave corner. Besides, after the heat in the cave where he had taken that bath, the chill of the wider room is nipping at his skin, and the fire seems really inviting. He dumps the bundle of clothes next to him.

The strange man is busy pouring steaming tea into two cups, which look as clumsily formed as the bowl in the bath. Futakuchi takes the offered cup, but doesn’t dare take a sip. Who knew what strange things the stranger could have mixed into it.

Noticing his hesitation, the man puts his own tea aside, reaches for Futakuchi’s cup, and takes a sip from it. His face barely moves, but Futakuchi is pretty sure he just badly burned his tongue and looks very regretful. He pushes the cup back into Futakuchi's hands, turned to the side he hadn’t taken a sip from.

The gesture is so small and thoughtful, and the man looks so earnest as he gives Futakuchi a nod and a little grunt. _Not poisoned._

Futakuchi sighs, blows on the steam, and decides to give in to the soft spot inside him, even though it’s probably a really bad idea.

“What’s your name?” he asks. “Will you tell? You can speak, right? I heard you, when I was in your …” Futakuchi’s eyebrows furrow. This sounds really strange. “... mouth.”

The man looks down at his cup, his hands large around it. Are his fingers trembling? He bites down on his lip and … _he’s shy,_ Futakuchi realises. _Shy and nervous._

It’s almost endearing.

“... Aone,” he says after a while. His voice is rough, as if he barely ever used it. Futakuchi wonders if he ever gets the chance to. “Aone Takanobu.”

“I’m Futakuchi Kenji, a white mage from Datekou. It’s nice to meet you, Aone.”

Aone’s expression shifts again, the most minuscule shift, but Futakuchi is pretty sure he can read him. That’s definitely a smile. He looks so unbearably happy.

“It’s nice to meet you,” he replies, a slight hiccup to his voice, like he can’t quite tame his nerves and excitement. And his voice almost catches when he adds: “Futakuchi Kenji.”

The mage stares down into his cup, and sighs deeply. Figures that he’d get a soft spot for the monster that took him away in the middle of the night.

“Why did you bring me here, Aone?” He has a feeling, sort of. The same that made him accept the tea, the bath, the clothes. Maybe this monster and he, they aren’t so different.

Aone puts his cup to the side again, and gets the ring out of his pocket, showing it to him again. His expression is equal parts eager and desperate, and Futakuchi’s heart aches slightly.

Why does he have to be so soft? Jeez, he can’t ever let Oikawa now.

Since Aone is shy and doesn’t seem great with words, Futakuchi decides to take matters into his own hands.

“Do you know why I threw this ring into the ocean?”

Aone looks tempted to nod, but eventually shakes his head. He’s honest.

“A long time ago, there was a girl who didn’t quite love me, but she promised me a life together.” Futakuchi speaks slowly, carefully. He can’t believe tonight is the night of turning all the secrets and insecurities he keeps covered and hidden so desperately inside out and showing them to the world. He keeps his gaze on Aone’s face, determined not to miss the slightest reaction. “And I accepted, because I was so unbearably lonely, and I thought I would not have to be lonely anymore, ever.” There’s an ache in his heart and he’s sure he can see the same in Aone’s eyes.

“I tried to make it work, but eventually … she left, and I was lonely again. Even worse than before. Marrying just anyone will not take away your loneliness, Aone, you understand that, right?”

The man squeezes his eyes shut, and nods earnestly, his face slowly crumbling. Futakuchi feels choked up. “So, I’m sorry, but I definitely can’t marry you, just like I probably should have never married Nametsu.”

Aone keeps nodding, without opening his eyes.

“Aone?” Futakuchi asks, softly. He can’t quite believe himself, but his aching heart won’t settle for anything less.

Aone replies with a questioning little noise.

“Do you know what a hug is?”

He nods, slowly.

“Has anyone ever hugged you before?”

His eyes are still closed, and Futakuchi wishes he wouldn’t be able to read the pain written across his stoic face as Aone shakes his head.

“May I?”

A heartfelt, jerky nod. Still choked up, Futakuchi pushes himself up and shuffles over, mindful of the tea cup. He puts it aside so he won’t spill anything, and clears his throat to get Aone’s attention. “You need to turn towards me a little. Yeah, like that. Do you want to keep your eyes closed?”

Another nod. Futakuchi is almost grateful - Aone’s eyes are much more expressive than his face. “Don’t get startled. I’m going to hug you now.”

Aone’s body is absolutely rigid, and it starts out almost painfully awkward. Futakuchi feels strange, carefully wrapping his arms around the man’s bare torso, pulling him a little closer. He’s stiff and mostly unresponsive, until Futakuchi squeezes him lightly. With a soft noise, Aone melts and falls into him, wrapping his arms around him tightly.

It’s a little strange, maybe, but Futakuchi does not mind. It’s honest and much needed on both sides, so fuck conventions. Aone buries his nose at Futakuchi’s shoulder, holding him so tightly it’s a little hard to breathe, but still short of painful. Futakuchi tries to hold him as tightly in turn, and feels that the chill of the cave does not matter in the warm embrace. He takes a deep breath, as good as he can with that crushing grip on him, and when he exhales, feels vulnerable and raw and like a badly treated wound had finally been cleaned, the process painful but leaving it ready to heal at last.

“Aone,” he whispers after a while, words he does not want to say, but has to. “I need to return to my friends. You will bring me back, will you?”

There’s a slight hiccup, before Aone’s entire body starts trembling with sobs he's struggling to keep unheard. Aone buries his nose deeper at Futakuchi’s shoulder and nods jerkily. Feeling tears forming behind his eyelids, too, Futakuchi bites back a curse and holds Aone just a little bit more tightly. His arms are starting to ache from the strain, but he refuses to let go.

He will have to soon enough.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, and is amazed when he knows exactly what that warbled little grunt means that he gets in turn. _Nothing to be sorry for._

“I wish I could promise you to never be lonely again,” he mumbles, mindless babbling by now. He feels warm and clean and desperate and vulnerable and he doesn’t want to leave Aone in this wide place glowing so warmly even though it must be so cold for one person alone, so silent and lonely.

Futakuchi knows too well how badly that hurts.

“I would, I would promise you to always be by your side, to get to know you and be your friend, if only I could stay - but I can’t, and I - I can’t ask you to leave this place behind, so -”

Aone freezes in his embrace, perfectly still for so long, Futakuchi feels worried.

“Aone?”

“If I - if I follow you,” Aone asks, voice quivering and still rough, the words all awkward. “Will you be my friend?”

“Of course,” Futakuchi replies.

“Do you promise?”

“Yes, of course, but - but you can’t leave this place, this is your home -”

Aone lets go of him and pulls back, meeting Futakuchi’s gaze with his honest eyes, red-rimmed and puffy. “Home is lonely. You’re not.” And then he bows his head. “Will you take me along, please?”

 

\---

 

“Can you believe that siren ignored me?!”

Ushijima’s eyes are burning, and Oikawa’s on-going offense does nothing to ease his headache. It’s been hours. Who knew what that monster was doing to Futakuchi? Torturing him, pressuring him into unspeakable acts. Worry and frustration keep gnawing away at him. He feels anger, deep and hot and boiling, at that monster but also at himself, for being so helpless and useless and unable to save a person so dear to him.

“What does a siren matter?” he asks, his own voice sounding foreign to him. Oikawa closes his mouth, looks at him with that intense gaze that reminds Ushijima that the demon is much more than what some of his thoughtless behaviour might let on.

“You’re really worried about him, aren’t you? Jeez, don’t look so damn earnest. It makes it harder to hate you whole heartedly.”

“Aren’t you?!” Ushijima counters. Oikawa and Futakuchi had seemed much closer lately. They’d even snuck off to spend time together at the beach, alone.

Futakuchi had thrown his wedding ring away for Oikawa - his promise to another person.

Ushijima grits his teeth, the anger boiling hotter, suddenly, without him knowing why.

“Well, I trust in Fu-chan to stand against that horrible monster. And we’ll figure something out. We stood against a horde of unicorns together, we can -”

“You did. Not me.” Ushijima’s nails dig into his palms he clenches his fists so tightly. He had done nothing to help them back then. If anything, it was his fault in the first place, for his inability to handle any influence of magic beyond fleeting, little sparks of it. Futakuchi and Oikawa could have travelled back alone, with the help of a portal easily bought in a bustling, international port like Jouzenji. “We’ll get Futakuchi back, and then you two will go home using a portal. I can travel back alone.”

To his surprise, Oikawa does not look relieved and pleased by that notion at all. Does he look … angry? Yeah, definitely angry.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ushiwaka-chan. You’re only here because I came into your bar seeking trouble and Fu-chan was happy to comply. Of course we won’t abandon you. You’re much more stupid than I thought.” With a huff, Oikawa turns around, his cape flaring. Its edges are ragged by now, torn places sewn. That ridiculous piece of clothing has seen many rough times. Ushijima feels strangely relieved when he falls into step behind Oikawa.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“Back. The sun’s rising. We should get a snack so your brain won’t die from lack of nutrition and you can stop spewing bullshit. Then we’ll keep figuring this out, and if I have to fry that damn seamonster. We could eat a fish of that size for weeks.”

“It would probably spoil, though,” Ushijima remarks, not letting on how much more at ease Oikawa’s words make him feel. Or, not his words … mostly his demeanor. He sounds so sure of the fact that they will rescue Futakuchi and carry on with their journey. Ushijima allows himself to be infected by that optimism.

“You know, Ushiwaka-chan,” Oikawa says. “Sometimes I don't know if you're pulling my leg or if you actually mean what you're saying.”

And Oikawa is the same as always. It's a relief, honestly. Besides, how close Futakuchi and Oikawa are does not matter. The only thing that matters is that Futakuchi will be safe.

The world seems much more stable again. And then Oikawa hisses: “It’s back.”

Ushijima follows the demon’s narrowed gaze, to where the monster is nearing the beach, only the upper half of its head above water.

“What do you say?” Oikawa asks with a terrifyingly sharp grin, smacking his fist against his palm, sparks flying. His eyes are glowing. “Let’s fry some fish.”

“Sounds great,” Ushijima replies grimly, and they switch direction, wide strides towards the beach.

Oikawa is no doubt about to tell him to get a safe distance away, ready to conjure his flames, when Ushijima’s breath hitches in his throat. Unable to form words, he reaches out, slapping Oikawa’s shoulder and pointing at the monster’s head.

“Son of a bitch,” Oikawa curses. So Ushijima is not hallucinating.

Futakuchi is sitting at the top of the monster’s head, the very image of ease and confidence, feet and arms crossed, his head high and his grin wide. The monster reaches the beach, Ushijima and Oikawa frozen in place as Futakuchi hops off its head with ease and turns around as if anticipating something, instead of doing the sensible thing and maybe _run_ towards them so they could get away from the monster.

Almost eerily silent, the monster begins to morph into a shape rapidly shrinking in size, until a man drops out of the air and lands on his feet surprisingly lightly. Futakuchi laughs,  and his voice carries over to them. “I like it much better when I don’t get drenched in your saliva. I could even get used to this!”

The monster turned man does not reply or give any confirmation that it understood Futakuchi. Ushijima finds that a lot of people probably have no right calling him stoic compared to this guy. And his fist is really twitching to punch him for taking Futakuchi away.

That monster probably worked some kind of magic on him - that’s the only explanation why Futakuchi seems so at ease around him. He has changed his clothes, too, suddenly. After such a long time of refusing to.

“Leave that guy to me,” he tells Oikawa and strides off, his steps purposeful. Futakuchi sees him approach, still smiling.

“Hey, so, I’m back and turns out it wasn’t actually that - what are you - _Ushijima!”_

Ignoring Futakuchi for now, Ushijima moves to swing at the monster, which meets his gaze and raises one arm, deflecting his blow to its face. His anger from before comes back full force, and Ushijima is _burning_ for a proper fight.

But then Futakuchi steps between the two of them, reaching up, his fingers around Ushijima's arm digging in hard, relentlessly. Ushijima allows him to force his arm back down to his side. The monster lowers its arm, too.

Ushijima tears his gaze away from the monster’s to meet a surprising amount of anger in Futakuchi’s eyes.

“Aren’t you the one with the no fight policy?” he asks him, almost coldly.

“I guess I’ve found my exception,” Ushijma replies. “This thing brainwashed you, and I’m gonna -”

“Do not _ever_ call him a thing again,” Futakuchi hisses, taking a step forward, getting into his face so sudden, Ushijima stumbles a step backwards. He never stumbles. He never dodges. Why does this man get him so … off balance?

“I could’ve told you this much more civilly if you would have just fucking _listened._ This is Aone. He’s my _friend_ and he’ll be coming with us. If you’ve got a problem with that, you’re welcome to continue this journey without us.”

The world is upside down again, breath caught in Ushijima's throat. Oikawa refused to let him go on his own, but here Futakuchi is, so ready to toss him away for a .. monster, person? … who had forcefully taken him from the friends. The ones who had truly been there for him on this journey, every step of the way.

“So this is how it is,” Ushijima replies cooly. He’s surprised by how cleanly he can keep his boiling anger out of his voice. His gaze drops to Futakuchi’s hips, adorned with shells that are so much the monster and so little _him._ Ushijima reaches out without thinking, brushing his thumb across the edge of one. “It doesn’t suit you.”

Futakuchi slaps his hand away, and when he takes a step back, it’s not just physical distance growing between them. Ushijima feels choked, hurt in a way he does not understand and doesn’t want to figure out. Maybe ever.

“I think it does,” Futakuchi replies. “And frankly, I don’t give a shit about your opinion.”

Oikawa is at his right shoulder, and Ushijima blinks, and the world is suddenly more again than just Futakuchi and him. Has Oikawa been here the entire time? Probably.

“Jeez, Fu-chan. I’m glad you’re back, but don’t you think that was a little harsh?” Oikawa asks him in hushed tones. Ushijima turns around, feeling so much at once he can’t discern it, and the tangle of it all just leaves him numb.

“It wasn’t. And I’m never, ever going to follow your advice again and throw rings into the ocean.”

Oikawa bursts into laughter, and out of the corner of his eyes Ushijima can see them embrace. The sight makes his heart ache, and he hates himself for that, and some part of him, dark and so deep down he didn’t know it existed - that part hates Futakuchi a little bit, too.

 

\---

 

“He looked hurt,” Aone tells Futakuchi, the following evening.

Oikawa is curled up into a tight ball, exhausted after a day of being more insufferable than usual, apparently on some strange mission to prove himself the alpha friend. It’s kind of endearing, in that nerve grating way of his. Ushijima is probably asleep, too. Futakuchi didn’t check.

He huffs when Aone tells him that, voice small. He’s been worried about this ever since that unfortunate first meeting. Worried about fucking things up for Futakuchi, but honestly, Ushijima and hurt? Angry, sure. But hurt took it too far.

“Why would he be? He treated you like shit, so I told him off.” Futakuchi shrugs. “It’s his fault when he can’t accept that there’s more people in my life than him and Oikawa.”

Granted, the fact that even Oikawa showed actual, honest concern for Ushijima had been a little jarring. But honestly, if anything the new distance between them is for the better. Futakuchi can’t deny the crush on the man he’d carried with him for a while, each evening in the bar looking much more brightly, not because of the drinks or the atmosphere, but Ushijima’s company. And why would Futakuchi not feel attracted to him? He’s strong, he’s good looking, and his dry humour and earnesty are something Futakuchi can appreciate.

He's the only person who ever listened, to all his troubles and worries, with never ending patience.

But even if his marriage is a lost cause, Futakuchi can not act on something like these feelings, it's simply … wrong. Travelling together, growing closer – if anything, that had only made his feelings for Ushijima worse. The distance will help him get a grip again, take a step back. Get it under control.

Besides, their relationship is horribly one-sided in the first place. Ushijima knows too much, ever the quiet listener, and Futakuchi barely knows more than what he can gather from looking at Ushijima and spending so much time travelling with him. He knows that he sleeps with his hands tucked under his cheeks, likes too much salt in his food and is one of those horrible creatures who rise in the morning and actually have energy and motivation.

He’s hard working and straight forward, but Futakuchi doesn’t _know_ him. Not like he knows Oikawa, by now. Hell, he knows _Aone_ better, on a deeper level.

Maybe there was potential for Ushijima and him, but that’s all that is lost.

“Don’t worry about it,” he tells Aone, even when his smile feels a little strained. Besides, that lonely soul next to him is much more important than some pointless, shallow crush. “Get some sleep. We want to leave Wakunan behind pretty soon. There’s a long way ahead of us.”

Aone nods, earnestly. And then he gets that damn puppy look again. Futakuchi sighs, and pulls him into a hug. Aone squeezes back, and Futakuchi can’t help but smile at the way that Aone has perked up already. He seems so happy, and honestly, Futakuchi feels happy, too.

Even at the end of the journey, when Oikawa will go his own way, and Ushijima will become simply a bartender he might see every once in a while - Aone and him had made a promise.

No more loneliness for either of them.

They fall asleep with their fingers laced, and Futakuchi feels warm and … hopeful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's ONE way to make friends.  
> [Futakuchi voice] Why care about a crush if I can have a qp? 
> 
> Tune in next week for the ever-growing tattoo collection, people who suck at their job and those who don't, and More Backstory (TM).
> 
> (Relevant tags will be added with the next chapter so there won't be spoilers :>)


	3. Ticket right back to the past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Futakuchi's tattoo collection keeps growing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY HAIKYUU DAY Y'ALL LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL SEASON 2 IS HERE AND USHIJIMA IS REAL!!!!! (So is Yacchan HAVE YOU SEEN ALL THE GIRLS IN HAIKYUU aren't we blessed) 
> 
> (The fact that I happened to have an Ushijima centric chapter ready to go today by sheer accident is the greatest accidental triumph of my life.)
> 
> Just a heads-up: warning for injuries ahead! (I tried to keep it non-graphic but better be safe than sorry!)

As you may remember, dear reader, we have established already that the harbours of Shiratorizawa are much more guarded and have a far stricter policy on who is allowed to enter. It makes them a lot safer than Jouzenji, where just last week a watersnake might have destroyed a cruiser - fortunately without hurting anyone, except for the wallets of insurance companies, who are to this date still trying to shift the responsibility of paying for the damage towards the rival company.

It also makes it impossible for the mismatched quartet to travel across the sea, like Aone would have been immediately ready to offer. Nobody in their right mind would simply let a seamonster enter a well guarded harbour.

Everyone of their group is still excited to see the wealthy country, though. None of them have ever been to Shiratorizawa before. Or at least that's what Futakuchi, Oikawa and Aone think. Nobody is aware of the fact that Ushijima knows this country better even than other people who might have grown up there.

Their progression stays as scattered and strange as it began: a white mage who wouldn’t call himself newly wed anymore, and who isn’t as unhappy as he used to be, with his two friends still silently duking it out for the best friend position - even when the silence between Ushijima and him bothers him much more than he lets on.

A demon whose demons are slowly starting to catch up with him.

A simple bartender who might be a little more than he lets on.

And a seamonster, carrying a huge barrel of water on his back so he can stay hydrated on land, and who feels more at home in the humanoid body of his than he ever felt even in the embrace of the sea. He never quite strays from Futakuchi’s side, horribly awkward still around Oikawa and Ushijima. Oikawa is able to read him even without many words, but deliberately misinterprets most things he communicates because how dare he try to take Oikawa’s pre-established friend #1 position.

So, Aone’s addition to the group leaves the strangest shift of dynamics: with the new break between Ushijima and Futakuchi, and Ushijima’s refusal to go beyond politeness and common courtesy with Aone, Oikawa is the closest he has to a friend at the moment.

Not even he knows, though, as they make their way across the Shiratorizawa border, that Ushijima feels more lost than ever, and longs for a friend at his side who could make him feel like there is nothing to fear, even when he’s returning to a home he abandoned long ago.

(One that abandoned him, as well.)

Someone to make him feel as invincible as Futakuchi obviously makes Aone feel.

But he keeps walking, tight-lipped and hiding his struggle behind an unwavering mask not even Oikawa sees through - not yet.

 

\---

 

“We have to be careful around these parts,” Ushijima murmurs for the third time, sending a glance of unease around the dark forest surrounding them. Futakuchi exhales sharply next to him, something Ushijima knows means he is displeased.

“We know. You already mentioned,” he answers, voice sharp. The unease crawling up Ushijima’s skin isn’t exactly helped by Futakuchi’s glare. Even now that things have settled with Aone as addition to their group – even though Ushijima can partially understand why exactly they bonded - (even though jealousy is an ugly thing he’s never had to deal with before, one he doesn’t appreciate it) – it always feels like Futakuchi is still angry at him.

As if breathing, existing was enough for Ushijima to get on Futakuchi's nerves.

But the whole point is that Ushijima _knows_ this forest, and _knows_ its dangers. So, frankly, he does not care what Futakuchi thinks about his warnings. “It’s important. I want you to keep it in mind.”

“I’m pretty sure we heard you the first time,” Futakuchi replies, and his tone reminds Ushijima of that night at the bar, the night they’d fallen through the portal. Just waiting to pick a fight. Why is he so frustrated?

Aone probably knows. Oikawa, too. It’s only Ushijima who can’t reach out and connect with Futakuchi like those two, ask him what the hell is going on.

He misses his bar more than anything at these times. Everything was so easy with the counter between them - Futakuchi would tell him anything, and at the end of the day, smile. A smile that lit up his eyes, true gratitude.

Ushijima misses his bar, he misses Swan, and he misses that smile.

And every ounce of him rebels against being back in Shiratorizawa. He tugs the scarf around his neck higher, up to his nose, as if he can hide his face away from a country that knows his face and hates his guts, a country he despises as much.

“Fu-chan, if you’re done snapping Uhiwaka-chan’s head off, could we maybe concentrate on the map?” Oikawa asks sweetly, earning himself an even more murderous glare.

“I’m not snapping any heads off.”

“You’re snapping off mine as we speak,” Oikawa replies.

Aone gives an uncertain little grunt that has Futakuchi give him the stink-eye. “Oh, really, you too?”

Aone’s next grunt sounds a lot more certain. Ushijima’s lip quirks up. He might just grow to like that guy.

Futakuchi throws up his hands. “Fine! Shall I leave you to your map looking and go ‘snap off heads’ somewhere else?!” He pushes himself up to his feet, and Ushijima is alerted already. This is _exactly_ what he warned everyone about.

“Don’t leave the area we checked.” Futakuchi’s glare levels on him again, and the defiance in it makes Ushijima’s blood run cold.

“Oh, watch me.” He turns on his heel and leaves, and with a curse, Ushijima rushes after him, calling his name, going ignored.

Oikawa looks after them, extending his arm to hold Aone back, who is ready to follow, too.

“You know it too, don’t you?” Oikawa asks him. “This might be good for them.”

Aone nods sharply, fists in his lap. Sometimes Oikawa still can’t believe this guy is competing with him over Futakuchi’s attention, but at the end of the day he’s earnest and unexpectedly funny, too. And most times Aone agrees with him. Oikawa can appreciate his wisdom.

“Fine, then. You want to help me map out our way home?”

They do have a map now, thanks to Aone, whose crafts had sold well enough on the markets of Wakunan to afford this big roll that will help them home, spices and a compass, additional clothes, _soap,_ and a little souvenir Oikawa can bring his mother. Who is he kidding, by now Oikawa _does_ appreciate Aone.

Especially since he had agreed to take them to Karasuno on his back. No more rafts and rowing. They only have to make it to the one stretch of beach that isn’t under a ridiculously strict policy as every other stretch in Shiratorizawa, and of course lies at the other edge of the country.

Aone looks down on the map, all concentration. He doesn’t know much of the world, so he’s always amazed and listens to Oikawa talk and talk with great care and - at least according to Futakuchi who could read his expressions - a lot of enthusiasm.

Oikawa traces a line through Shiratorizawa, towards the bay they will start from, and then through the sea towards Karasuno.

“After Karasuno, there’s five more countries to go! Most of them aren’t really interesting, though - or not as interesting. Except for the Fiery Realms, of course, but that’s just because actual _dragons_ live there _._ Not the bird like ones you see everywhere. No, those are the real deal. I hope we won’t piss one off and die before we can arrive back home~”

The frustrating thing about trying to scare Aone a little is that Oikawa isn’t sure whether it’s even working. Sure, he’s perceptive enough to figure some things out about Aone, but definitely doesn’t have that kind of terrifying telepathy Futakuchi seems to have.

“Karasuno, though - they say if you’re not careful, that land will chew you up and spit you back out. It’s wide and torn, with no harsher winds found anywhere else. You can go ages without meeting a single soul. Who makes it there, sprouts from that concrete - they’re tough, and terrifying. Maybe we’ll meet someone,” he adds with a sharp grin. Oikawa can’t help but feel excited about it. “We haven’t seen the most dangerous places yet. Shiratorizawa is a walk in the park compared to that.”

Aone makes a noise, and that definitely sounds terrified. Feeling satisfied, Oikawa thinks it’s time to recap some of the journey - mainly describe unicorns in detail - when he realises that Aone’s noise had nothing to do with his stories.

The map is levitating in the air.

Just amazing. He was right in the middle of a story! How rude.

“Don’t tell me this forest is fucking haunted,” Oikawa curses. He’s trying to think of that whole ‘Warding Spirits Off 101’ he learned, but the only thing he remembers is salt. He starts digging in his bag as muffled, warped chuckling echoes around them, seemingly from nowhere and everywhere at once. Oikawa is _so_ not in the mood for this, and if these fuckers are here for blood, he will gladly salt and burn them.

“Youuuu have maaaade a mistaaaaake coming heere!” A voice tells them, more high pitched than the dark chuckles. Oikawa’s eyes dart around, because he’s finally found the salt. He gives Aone a handful and spreads equal parts in his own fists. The second the ghosts trip up, he will have a surprise for them.

“I don’t think they look terrified at all,” the higher voice whispers. Does the spirit think it can’t be heard? Because despite the lower voice, Oikawa can hear it perfectly in the silence of the dark forest around.

“That’s because you suck,” a deeper voice snaps back. “Shut up and keep going!”

“I don’t suck! You’re so mean!”

“Don’t whine around, throw something, rustle some leaves, we need more noise!”

“You’re making enough noise!” They’re not even trying anymore. They’re just yelling. Oikawa trades a glance with Aone. At least the on-going bickering makes it easy to pinpoint exactly where they must be.

“And whose fault is that?! C’mon, Shouyou, _try a little har-_ ”

Oikawa throws an entire fistful of salt, and with a hissing noise, the spirit materialises in front of him. It looks like a teenager - only see-through and with a silver glow - making gurgling noises as he clutches his face. “Holy _shit_ you threw _salt_ into my _eyes_ do you have _any_ idea how _badly_ this _burns_ , son of a _bitch!”_

With a pang, a smaller spirit materialises next to him, its glow tinged golden, reaching out to touch the other one, his hands going straight through him. The golden spirit throws his head around, looking equal parts panicked and furious. “You killed Tobio!”

“I’m fucking _dead_ already, Shouyou,” the one apparently named Tobio snaps. “It just burns like hell!”

Oikawa just watches in a strange mix of fascination and annoyance. He can’t believe those two are the ones haunting this forest. Is this why Ushiwaka-chan had been so on edge? Incredible. It only took Oikawa a few minutes to unravel the secret of the supposedly haunted woods.

“I guess Ushiwaka wasn’t even right about the dangers here,” Oikawa laughs. “If it’s just those two.”

That’s when a blood curdling scream sounds from deeper within the forest. All of them freeze. Shouyou jumps behind Tobio, as if that would help him anything. He’s trembling. Oikawa didn’t know the dead could tremble.

“T-Tobio,” he gasps. “What if that was a ghost?!”

Aone makes a choked noise that Oikawa is sure is laughter.

“ _You_ are a ghost. _We’re_ ghosts!”

“But you’re not scaring m- I take it back I take it back I take it ba-”

Oikawa wonders how intimidation tactics worked if you couldn’t even touch each other, but mostly he’s focused on the noise they just heard. The terrifying thing is - it hadn’t sounded like a ghost at all.

Far, far too human.

Ushijima and Futakuchi are out there, and Oikawa can taste terror at the back of his throat.

 

\---

 

“Wait!” Ushijima calls behind him, but Futakuchi won't stop running and each step more he takes makes Ushijima's heartbeat pick up. The terror he feels rushing through the dark behind Futakuchi is worse than his heartbeat slowing in the face of magic, much worse.

He's not trying to do anything bad to Futakuchi. He just doesn't want him to get hurt.

“Don’t follow me! Just leave me alone!”

“I can’t!” Ushijima calls. “Stop walking! You have no idea how dangerous this forest is!”

“Oh, and you have?” Futakuchi asks, whirling around to him, hands in fists at his hips. “I thought you’ve never been here before.”

Ushijima freezes and averts his gaze. He can't meet Futakuchi's eyes. “It doesn’t matter. I know we’re on bad terms, but the danger is real and I don’t want you to get hurt. Will you please come back with me?”

He's terrified it won't work, will only drive Futakuchi further into the forest.

Actually, Ushijima knows it will. Like everything he has done lately, no doubt this will drive Futakuchi away, too.

But for the first time in so long, Futakuchi's eyes seem almost soft when he looks at him. “Fine. Don’t look so surprised. Let’s go back, okay? The others will probably worry. They always do.”

Futakuchi takes a step forwards, and the relief Ushijima feels doesn’t get to unfurl in his chest. There’s a horrible, metallic noise.

What nightmares are made of.

And yet it is nothing against Futakuchi’s scream, tearing through the air as he falls. It doesn’t even sound like his voice, it doesn’t even sound _human._ That gurgling scream fills Ushijima with horror, dread, fear of an intensity, he doesn't know how or when he makes his way over.

Already he knows that sound will haunt him forever.

“H - elp -” It’s a broken, choked sound, barely forced out. Ushijima falls to his knees next to him, panicking the second he sees Futakuchi’s foot caught in the trap, something dark and shiny already oozing around it.

Too much blood.

“It’s going to be okay.” His voice sounds strong, unwavering, even when Ushijima feels nothing but panic and horror. His voice does not betray him. Futakuchi bites down on his lip with a hiccup, gives a jerky nod. He doesn’t say anything else, tries to bite back, but can’t help the whimpering noises escaping him.

Ushijima moves mechanically. His voice ratters something off, reassurances, promises. The words don’t really matter - it’s the tone of his voice, his conviction. When Futakuchi’s foot is finally free, Ushijima discards the trap in disgust, shuffling closer. He’s so desperate to help but has no idea what to do.

Futakuchi still sounds ragged, broken. He’s hiccuping, gurgling wet noises. Trying to fight the tremor of the sobs which only irritate the injury more, worsen the pain.

It hurts so much to be forced to watch him suffer. Ushijima would rather suffer the pain for him than sit next to him, so helpless in the face of Futakuchi's anguish. Without thinking, he reaches out, curling a hand around Futakuchi’s bicep.

Futakuchi takes a ragged breath, pulls his hurt foot closer. His breath hitches, but he bites back another choked up noise. Ushijima is impressed by how well he is keeping it together.

Feeling in the way, Ushijima drops his hand, lets go of him.

“No,” Futakuchi forces out. “Please -”

Feeling self conscious, worried he understood wrong, Ushijima moves closer again, tries to offer comfort with contact alone. Words have never been his strong fort.

There is no backlash. Ushijima wraps his arm half around Futakuchi's hip, offering support, and Futakuchi leans into the touch. He curses, his voice weak and trembling. A hot tear falls on the back of Ushijima's hand, and he shuffles just the slightest bit closer. Then, Futakuchi's hands start glowing, and Ushijima's body revolting.

During those weeks on the raft between Jouzenji and the island they had landed on, Ushijima has learned enough about Futakuchi's magic to know what is going on. Without his staff to channel the strain and enhance his abilities, when he is calling upon his magic – it's directly through his own core. It's enhanced by his own life force.

That is why Futakuchi avoids most magic, especially powerful magic.

This, this is powerful. The injury is bad, and mending his own skin and muscles –

Futakuchi's breathing grows from cut off gasps to shuddering breathing, slowly evening out. The pain must have started to ease at last - but worry tugs at Ushijima, deep and relentless. Will Futakuchi be alright … ?

“N-nnno,” the mage gasps, suddenly. “G-get - off -”

Ushijima freezes, terrified he did something wrong. But then it hits him - that Futakuchi - idiotic, brilliant, insane Futakuchi - is trying to look out for him. Ushijima grits his teeth through the heavy feeling in his body the magic is causing, and in a second of defiance, moves even closer. With a defeated sigh, Futakuchi slumps against his chest, head resting under Ushijima’s chin.

“Stu-bborn - b-bastard,” Futakuchi breathes, and it sounds like he’s trying to laugh. The tiny smile feels foreign on Ushiima’s face in the terror of this situation.

“Likewise,” he replies, and he hopes it makes Futakuchi’s lips twitch into the hint of a smile in turn.

They stay silent for a while - nothing but Futakuchi’s ragged breathing and the soft glow of his hands. The strain is tiring Ushijima out, but his resolve is strong enough. He will not give in, not when Futakuchi needs him.

With a sigh that seems to leave him limp, Futakuchi drops his hands, the glow diminished.

“Are you done?” Ushijima asks, his voice rough.

There’s a bitter little noise catching in Futakuchi’s throat. Laughter will still not come to him, even though he seems to struggle to. “Break.”

Ah.

There’s not much Ushijima can do, except for trying to support Futakuchi as best as he can, arm still curled around his side so he won’t have to hold himself upright. They sit in silence, silence thicker than the darkness around them. Thicker even than the wall that seems to have crumbled between them, and Ushijima’s heart aches thinking that it needed _this_ for them to stop being …

The touch on his arm startles him, feather-soft. When he realises it’s Futakuchi running his fingertips over his skin, his heart does something strange, even though there’s no magic nearby, not right now. Maybe it’s magic still lingering on Futakuchi’s fingertips. Ushijima sucks in a breath, his eyes fall shut. The trails leave a prickling in their wake, suddenly calming his heartbeat, easing the tension.

That's … a new kind of magic.

“Sorry,” Futakuchi whispers, startling Ushijima again.

“For what?”

“A lot.” Futakuchi’s fingers still on his skin. “... when this wound is - I’ll be - tired.”

“I’ve got you,” Ushijima promises, tightening his hold on Futakuchi to give his words more weight. “I’ll take care of you, I’ll carry you back.”

Futakuchi nods slightly, and his hair tickles Ushijima’s chin. He sighs, and with a pang of intensity that leaves him reeling, Ushijima wishes he could be holding Futakuchi without all this - the fatigue, the injury, the pain. Just the two of them, and Futakuchi’s fingers tracing prickling trails across his skin.

But life doesn’t work that way, and their peace doesn’t last much longer. It’s an illusion, a small break Futakuchi needs before the glow is back, Ushijima’s heart beats with more strain and the mage is eating away at his own strength to keep mending the wound.

Ushijima keeps his promise. He cradles the unconscious man against his chest, and carries him back without fail. His left arm still feels like it’s tingling, even when Futakuchi long stopped touching him, and there’s a tight feeling in his chest, in his throat.

He’s not sure if it was the exposure to magic, but when Oikawa and Aone’s faces crumble in terror and they come rushing towards them, he feels unbearably tired. More tired than he has ever felt before, he thinks.

\---

 

“I’ve literally mended this wound on my own. I think I would know if I couldn’t walk.”

Futakuchi is sitting upright, and there’s colour to his cheeks for the first time in three days. Still, Ushijima’s nightmares are haunted by his scream of agony and he’d really rather not risk anything.

“We shouldn’t keep going by foot.”

“We can’t afford anything else,” Futakuchi argues. “And we can’t keep camping in this forest, even though Aone has found a best friend in a dead teenager.” He recoils. “That sounded a little harsh, didn’t it?”

Oikawa laughs and pats his shoulder. “You’ve actually been more of an asshole before.”

“That’s reassuring,” Futakuchi grumbles, but he doesn’t shake off the touch, like he did the past days. He truly is doing better, at last. And still Ushijima can’t get the images out of his mind - the shadows like bruises under his eyes as he slept through the hours after the accident, not moving once.

They’d taken turns changing the cloth on his burning forehead, but Ushijima hadn’t found an inkling of sleep that night, holding a silent vigil at his side.

But in the end, Aone and Oikawa are on Futakuchi’s side. He’s convincing.

So they say goodbye to their ghost friends, and carry on with their journey.

 

\---

 

“Thank you again,” Ushijima says, bowing to the kind woman. She had offered them a place to stay and food to eat only for helping out around the guest house, which meant baths for everyone, actual beds and tasty food.

But when he returns to their room, what he finds is … unexpected.

Aone has his arms wrapped around Futakuchi’s shoulders, roughly keeping him in place while he’s kicking and spitting, Oikawa apparently trying to wrestle Futakuchi's legs down. His cheek looks like he has taken a kick already.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Ushiwaka, great!” Oikawa huffs, voice strained from his on-going fight. “If you’d be so kind to help me out here.”

Ushijima eyes up the scene again. “I’m not sure I want to help out with this.”

“You do.”

That’s Aone’s voice, and everyone’s taken aback by it. Futakuchi stops struggling for a second, and Oikawa pins his legs down with both his arms, nodding his head at the ankle Futakuchi had hurt over a week ago. “Roll his pants up, we need to have a look at that wound.”

“Listen,” Futakuchi hisses, and the urgency in his voice makes Ushijima bend down and push his pants up. “I have it under control, okay -”

His heart stops. The entire room falls silent.

 

\---

 

Aone and Futakuchi are fighting. It’s mostly loud on Futakuchi’s side, but occasionally, even Aone’s voice will rise in turn.

Oikawa is sitting in front of the door, face screwed up in thought and helpless anger. Ushijima hasn’t stopped pacing up and down the hall, his thoughts spiralling and collarbone almost itching.

“We can’t keep going like this,” Oikawa says darkly. “He says he can keep it in check, but it already spread. When a curse reaches a heart -”

“I may be non-magical,” Ushijima says. “But even I know that what a curse does to a person. That curses can’t be healed from within.”

“And since he waited so long and strained his leg and own power, like he's not supposed to without his goddamn staff,” Oikawa adds, gaze on his fingers resting in his lap. “He’ll need someone powerful to cure him. It will take us weeks to raise enough money to pay for that. We’ll probably have to tie him to the bed to keep him from running off and fucking himself up even more in the meantime.”

Ushijima balls his hands into fists so they won’t tremble. “No.”

He takes a deep breath. There is no way around it, no other choice. He’d sacrificed a life and a past and tried to forget and escape, and if it wouldn’t raise questions among his group, he’d travel this land with a mask. But he _will_ show his mark, claim his rights - when it means that Futakuchi will be treated properly, can be cured.

Oikawa raises his head, gaze on him steady. There’s a flash in the demon's eyes, he’s waiting for Ushijima to go on. No doubt he’s already piercing together in his mind what Ushijima might be about to tell him.

“Before I … do what I have to,” Ushijima says, carefully. “I need you to promise me something, Oikawa.”

There’s no remark, nothing. Futakuchi’s life is on the line here.

“What promise?”

Ushijima steels his shoulders. “Don’t treat me any different than before.”

 

\---

 

“What’s going on? Who is she? No offense,” Futakuchi adds, mostly because the woman Ushijima brought into the room really makes him squirm where he’s lying. He’s fighting the urge to just … get up and leave. Not flee. Just. Maybe not keep being in her direct proximity.

Aone holds himself a lot more stiffly where he’s sitting at Futakuchi's left, across from the woman. It's his equivalent of being scared shitless. 

“Call me Saeko, I’m here to fix your fuck-up. Leg,” she commands.

Futakuchi blinks at her.

“Your leg,” she repeats, impatiently, waving her hand. “Don’t make me embarrass you by pulling away your blanket.”

Futakuchi, married and almost/maybe/kind of divorced man, feels himself actually flush with embarrassment, even when there’s nothing to be embarrassed about because he isn’t hiding a thing under his blanket. Still, he doesn’t move, locking eyes with Ushijima. What the hell was he thinking, bringing just anyone here to fix something as tremendously ruined as his ankle? This curse handled by an amateur, or honestly, anyone who isn’t specialised - he will _not_ risk it.

“She is a specialist,” Ushijima says, and Futakuchi snorts.

“Did she tell you that? We can’t _pay_ an actual specialist.”

Oikawa is leaning against the doorway, arms crossed, suspiciously quiet. This is his first time speaking up ever since Ushijima barged in with the ‘specialist’ in tow. “She is, Fu-chan. Just trust her and let’s get this over with.”

Ushijima tenses when Oikawa speaks – there’s something going on between the two of them, but Futakuchi doesn’t get the time to really think about that when Saeko rips away his blanket, grabs his leg and yanks it over.

“Hey - what - !” Her fingers dig into his leg, keeping it in place as she pushes the pants out of the way. She clicks her tongue when she sees the dark marks of the curse that has eaten its way deep into his ankle where the trap had snapped shut, and tarnished his shin from there. Futakuchi has struggled for two days straight, just to keep the curse below his knee so he could keep moving.

Maybe he should have said something, but - he was tired of holding the group back. Not everyone's happiness lies purely in this journey. Oikawa and Ushijima have places they want to return to, and Futakuchi won't keep them from that because he had to step into a trap. 

“You’re a white mage, you’d think you’d have some common sense,” the woman says, disapproval in her voice. “Eh, can’t change it now. Kiddo, this one ain’t gonna be pleasant. Bite down on something so you won’t lose your tongue.”

“Uh,” he says, eloquently. Aone hands him a small piece of leather. Saeko clicks her tongue when he hesitates, and the second Futakuchi does bite down on it, there’s a flash of deep, purple magic as she slams her hands down on his ankle.

\---

“See, that wasn’t that bad, was it?” Saeko says.

The door flies open the second the magic subsides, and the guesthouse keeper stands in the doorway, her silver hair in disarray and eyes wide in terror. “By all the kind gods of the north!” She clutches her chest, heaving from shock and exertion. “Did someone die? It sounded like someone was tortured in here -”

Saeko gives her the sweetest smile, not the slightest hint devious. Futakuchi would hiss at her if he wasn’t so busy curled up on himself and heaving for breath. “No death, just healing. Excuse us for disturbing you.”

“Excuse us for disturbing you,” Oikawa, Ushijima and Aone chime in, bowing.

The inn keeper fans herself, and nods, pushing her loose strands of hair around. “No, it is fine, I was simply taken aback.”

_Traitors, all of them_ , Futakuchi thinks. But even when his leg feels like someone has bombed it up from the inside out, he can feel the parasyte curse gone. No darkness eating away at him, no constant struggle to keep it at bay, to keep his guard up and resources focused on his ankle alone. A stain has stayed, a ragged circle around his ankle and a scatter of dots like blobs of ink up his shin.

If that curse had reached his heart …

He can deal with a few taints, those are nothing against the potential consequences of a festering curse. Hell, by now he’s even used to the friendship bracelet thing. (God, Oikawa is really rubbing off on him.)

“You still with us?” Saeko asks, cheerily.

Futakuchi grits his teeth, forces himself to meet her terrifying gaze, and thanks her for saving his life. Suddenly, she’s smiling at him fondly, patting his shoulder with enough force that bruises wouldn't be a surprise, and telling him to stay safe and healthy. And a million more things, but Futakuchi is still pretty dazed. In the end, she’s gone like a whirl storm.

Futakuchi stays curled up, so exhausted that the longing for sleep lures his burning eyes into falling shut. Aone squeezes his hand. Ushijima makes sure to ask him if he really feels okay, nods when he gets his answer and leaves the room with Aone on his heel.

“Maybe you should ask Ushijima how he paid for that,” is all Oikawa says, but Futakuchi’s right hand prickles with soothing warmth. Oikawa squeezes his shoulder and leaves the room after the other two, allowing Futakuchi to rest. 

 

\---

 

“It’s hard to keep my promise,” Oikawa tells him, the second they’re alone because Aone volunteered himself to help the inn keeper peel potatoes, and she’d been overjoyed to have such a ‘sweetheart’ helping her.  

Ushijima exhales. “I figured.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You will anyway, won’t you?”

Oikawa snorts. “You do know me by now, I guess.”

Ushijima crosses his arms, a little more tightly for some kind of illusion of protection against the prying, now that his past is in the open. Not that he regrets a thing, considering it saved Futakuchi’s life. There are things more important than a fragile peace made with the past. It would have come back to haunt him eventually, he figures.

Maybe without Oikawa involved, though.

“Why? Why would you give all this up?”

When Ushijima smiles, it stretches his face uncomfortably. “And you start with the hardest question of them all.”

 

\---

 

“We will make our way from here by the improved engine train running through the country. We will reach the borders within three days and can leave Shiratorizawa behind.”

Futakuchi obviously burns to ask Ushijima a million questions, but him of all people, Ushijima can’t let know what’s going on. The distance between them has just shrunk a little - he can’t push Futakuchi away for good now, only because of his past.

So Ushijima avoids him.

It’s not exactly a sound plan, that much he realises, too. But he’s out of his depth and constantly on edge now that there’s people who _know_ he is here, has come back. Flashed the mark and invited prying questions.

Anyone looking more closely could easily figure out that he is not the second-youngest son. And then … then there would be hell to pay.

All Ushijima wants to do is leave this country behind as fast as possible, and carry on with his simple life.

He turns, not giving Futakuchi a chance to ask questions, and immerses himself in what else they need to ride the Flying Pussyfoot. That is, a fancy wardrobe for each of them, and suitcases to store their belongings so their group would not stick out like a sore thumb.

 

\---

 

Aone looks more uncomfortable than he had after the Turtle Incident - which honestly is saying a lot - tugging at his collar and tie and everything he can reach, obviously feeling constricted and very unhappy about that. Oikawa has finally shut up about hiding his magnificent horns under a cap, only because the entire team assured him that it makes him look dashing.

Futakuchi - Ushijima tries not to look at him. He’s a little too distracting in a tail coat.

Their group still looks out of place by the sheer level of discomfort they emit, but it won't get any better than this, Ushijima figures. And he already invited all attention by boarding this train under guise of his mark, pretending his old identity has any place here. An identity he’d run from, clawed away with sheer force. He had embraced the sacrifice of losing both home and his family if only it meant to be free from the shackles on him. 

Now he slipped them on again, one last time, pretending to be his brother. The second someone realises he is actually the youngest son ... - he tries not to think about it.

“Let’s do this!” Oikawa cheers, the only one who seems to soak up the high class surrounding and embrace it whole heartedly. “Now that’s a way to travel if I’ve ever seen one!”

 

\---

 

Aone and Futakuchi sit close together, holding hands under the table where they think nobody can see them, both scared stiff and slightly green around the nose as the landscape slides past the windows. Oikawa is humming happily under his breath, enjoying the speed at which they’re rushing through the country, occasionally running his hands over the expensive cushions, the gold painted luggage compartment above their heads. It’s not true gold, but shines like it.

There's complicated patterns everywhere – the table is made from expensive marvel, polished so much they can see their reflections in it. Everything reeks of prunk and glory, boasts of wealth and luxury. Aone avoids it, Oikawa embraces it.

Futakuchi is very silent, but clutching Aone’s hand so hard, his knuckles are running white.

Ushijima’s thoughts are fleeting. From idiotic thoughts about Futakuchi’s hands to his fears for backlash, or the questions still burning on Oikawa’s and Futakuchi’s tongue he won't be able to avoid forever.

The high collar feels so constricting, Ushijima can honestly understand Aone's struggles. He'd forgotten how uncomfortable these fancy clothes could make him feel. They especially are a part of a life he has left behind without ever looking back. They’re too tight, too stiff, just - impractical.

It’s like he got pushed right back into a role of the past. One that has never suited him, but after tasting freedom - it's choking him up even worse now. Ushijima keeps telling himself that it's only for three days, to keep the anxiety churning within him in check. But sometimes, Futakuchi's gaze on him will linger, burn his skin.

There won't be peace for Ushijima as long as they're still in Shiratorizawa, he knows that much.

 

\---

 

All his covers and avoidances are immediately blown the second a waiter slides the compartment door open. It's only a split-second, almost anticlimactic considering how hard Ushijima has worked to hide it all away. How much effort and thought had been put into it.

The waiter inclines his head formerly. “Your Royal Highness, if I may inquire? Is there anything else I may bring you to make your stay on the Flying Pussyfoot as pleasant as possible?”

Forcing his voice to stay even, despite Futakuchi’s gaze boring into him, Ushijima replies: “Thank you, but your services are not required at the moment. I will call on you if they are.”

The waiter nods, and takes his leave.

Ushijima wishes he could follow right after him.

“Aone,” Oikawa says, cheerfully. “Didn’t we want to check out the dining car together?” He grabs his collar, and drags him out. The last thing Ushijima sees of him are Aone's wide eyes before the door slides shut and leaves Ushijima and Futakuchi sitting alone in a compartment that suddenly feels too small.

“Care to explain this, Your Royal Highness?” Futakuchi asks in the falling silence. His voice is venomous, so sharp it slices right under Ushijima's skin.

“Call me Ushijima, like you always have.” At least Ushijima's voice doesn’t betray how desperately he needs Futakuchi to. That’s … good.

He feels trapped in his seat, his foot tapping a nervous pattern on the carpet. Why can’t they be standing for this, or do anything else than directly facing each other.

“Is that even your name?” Futakuchi demands to know, each of his hissed questions flung with the sting of a slap. “Is this why you’ve been avoiding me? Am I even worth the royal air you’re breathing? _Royalty,_ Ushijima?”

The Soaring Eagle had pretty much cured Ushijima of rising to any and all provocations - not that he’d ever been prone to. But Futakuchi's harsh words make anger pool inside him, mixing with the bitterness and frustration. Once more Futakuchi is slipping from him, and hadn't he known it would end like this?

“I knew you’d react like this,” Ushijima shoots back, because this - this is exactly what he’d been afraid of, and of course it’s happening right now.

With Oikawa, with Futakuchi.

The only one who doesn’t care is Aone, Ushijima's new found favourite person, but that’s mostly because he wasn’t socialised by the rules they’ve been socialised by.

“Do you believe a single word you’re saying?” Ushijima asks, an honest question. “How can you think _this -_ ” He gestures, at the unnecessary prunk and glory of the cart around them, stuffed into every corner, carved into every detail of this train. Tugs at the collar choking him, finally giving in and opening two buttons. “How can you believe _all this_ i s anything I would _ever_ want?”

But Futakuchi is boiling. “Oh, it must be so hard - travelling in luxury, being able to pay the specialists of healing.”

“I did that for you.”

Futakuchi recoils, and Ushijima doesn’t like the slight satisfaction he feels from that, but he can't help it, either. It allowed him to – for once – baffle Futakuchi into silence. That's why he keeps going, using his chance to get his words in.

“I’m doing all this so you won’t push yourself and endanger your life more – and so we can leave this country behind as fast as possible. Now that people know that I’m here - word will pass, and you don’t want my family finding out I dared to come back into this country and flash the royal crest to claim birth rights I don’t have any longer.”

Futakuchi huffs, crossing his arms. “What’s that supposed to mean? That waiter just now seemed all too pleased that you were riding this god damn train. He seemed very eager to kiss your feet and lay the world at them for you.”

Ushijima braces his elbows on the table between them, placing his head in his hands so he can massage his temples as he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. It doesn’t matter, that he has never told a soul, that nobody knows. No-one past the borders of Shiratorizawa.

Though, maybe Futakuchi will understand. Nobody heard about Ushijima Wajatoshi building up a living from scratch. But almost the entire magical realm heard of …

“I’m the youngest son of the Shiratorizawa family.”

Futakuchi’s mouth falls open. So he did hear. Well, it was hard not to hear of the scandal, back then.

“You - but that -”

“Do you realise why I have no business flashing the crest and requesting assistance? I’m dead to my family. I don’t know what happens if they find out. So don’t you dare call me royal again - blood means nothing after your family disowned you. And don’t pity me either. I built up a honest living from scratch. I’m a humble bartender, and my name is Ushijima Wakatoshi. I’m still the same man, even if you know about my past now.”

Futakuchi takes a deep breath. He looks pale, a little shaken. Ushijima is not sure what’s going on, whether he’s feeling sick again or still mad at him for keeping quiet about all this.

It does not really matter. Now that the cards are on the table there's something much more important – if anyone else would find out, Ushijima couldn't keep living the life he does. Peaceful, in pleasant anonymity. Only known by his policy and quality of the drinks he offers.

“You can’t tell anyone. It took me a long time to carve myself this place. I just want to keep running my bar, no rumours, no more mocking, no sensations and scandals anymore. I've had enough of that for a lifetime. Promise me.”

“Of course I do,” Futakuchi replies without batting an eyelash, and Ushijima is slightly taken aback. He still sounds mad, but when he looks at Ushijima, there’s no anger in his eyes at all. “How could I not? I feel like an ass now, for forcing you to tell me. For forcing you to …” He bites his lip. “... go this far.”

“I’d do it again,” Ushijima says, because it’s the truth. “I don’t regret this since it's the reason you're cured.”

“God, stop.” Futakuchi buries his face in his hands, and groans. Ushijima has no idea what he did wrong this time. Somehow he never manages to fix anything with Futakuchi permanently. “This is all my fault. I’m sorry. Jesus.”

Wait, what. Ushijima is confused, and he can’t even see Futakuchi’s face, just his hair. It looks exactly as soft as it had felt tickling his chin. And maybe this is not the appropriate time to be recalling that feeling.

“What do you mean?”

“Ushijima, please, shut up and let me talk. I need to do this _at last_. It’d be even better if you were angry as hell with me – you have every right to be.”

Ushijima wants to tell him he's not angry – not really. Very confused and maybe hurt and with no idea what exactly is going on. But Futakuchi asked him to stay quiet and listen, so that's what he does.

“I’m sorry, ‘cause if I hadn’t thrown a hissy fit I wouldn’t have gotten hurt and you wouldn’t have been forced to dig out your horrible past and be so damn selfless and heroic and god _damn_ -”

Maybe Ushijima doesn’t quite mind listening. Selfless and heroic? That’s not what Ushijima perceived what he did as, but if Futakuchi calls it that - it doesn’t sound bad.

“I didn’t just throw a hissy fit, I’ve been a _walking_ hissy fit ever since we crossed the borders. Maybe even before that. And I’m sorry. I’ll get my shit together, okay? The thing is, I’m not mad at _you_ \- I’m mad at myself. And I take it out on you, that’s all.”

Oh. That’s. That’s progress, isn’t it? Are they mending things? Ushijima doesn’t quite dare to hope, but who is he kidding, he’s already hoping and his chest feels a lot lighter.

There’s still his fear that someone will recognize him as the youngest son - the disowned one, the shame of the family, blemish on the family tree. Having opened up about it at all leaves him feeling naked, like he’s been stripped of armor and anyone could hurt him now.

Futakuchi could hurt him now.

But he doesn’t.

His voice has gone soft, and he raises his head, and Ushijima’s breath hitches when their eyes meet.

He wishes Futakuchi would always look at him like this, even when it makes it a lot harder to breathe.

“I can’t see you as a simple bartender, Ushijima. Not because of your past - you, you’re - I - I already see you as much more than that.” Futakuchi’s voice is barely a whisper - so quiet, Ushijima has to lean in close to still catch it. There’s a light flush to Futakuchi's cheeks, and he can’t look at Ushijima again, studying his fingernails splayed on the table. “And … it’s driving me insane,” he breathes, and bites down on his lip.

Heat spreads across Ushijima’s skin, fills him to the core. His heart is racing, working harder than necessary. It doesn’t even need magic for that. Just the way Futakuchi looks, flustered after what he said. Ushijima’s fingers twitch, and closing the distance between their hands seems like one of the most terrifying, complicated tasks he’s ever tried to do.

Taking a deep breath, tongue-tied and terrified that any wrong word could shatter the new found peace between them, he slowly slides his hand closer to where Futakuchi’s is resting, heart skipping a beat when he can see Futakuchi reply in kind.

Their skin is almost brushing when the compartment door slides open and they jerk apart. It's Oikawa.

“I’m sorry to be the one to break this moment and I wish I could leave you to finally figure your embarrassing tension out, but Fu-chan, Taka-chan is standing in kitchen with two armfuls of lobsters he’s trying to save and I think you’re the only one who can smack some sense into him.”

 

\---

 

Except for Aone’s broken heart for the lobsters, the rest of the ride is … pleasant.

They don’t, as Oikawa so creatively put it, ‘figure out their embarrassing tension’, but that’s okay. More than that, actually. When Ushijima catches Futakuchi's gaze across the room they smile at each other, and Futakuchi talks freely with him again. If anything, this entire adventure has finally gotten them to a point from where they work out.

It’s fair enough, Ushiima guesses. He knows all about Futakuchi’s past - now Futakuchi knows about his.

Of course, their renewed bond – maybe stronger than ever – is a clear reminder that Ushijima needs to keep his inappropriate thoughts about Futakuchi in check. There's still a ring on his hand, clearly showing the world that Futakuchi is a man already promised to someone else.

But, it’s horrible - when Ushijima’s gaze falls on Futakuchi, he simply can’t control his … desires.

Holding his hand. Calling him by his first name. One time Ushijima fantasized about kissing his cheek and hit his head on Oikawa’s bunk bed over him in embarrassment and shock.

One day he will have to confess to Futakuchi that he is not the man of honour Futakuchi thinks Ushijima to be, that he has illicit urges to listen to his heartbeat, maybe, or feel his fingertips brush over his arm again like back in the forest. Urges he should not be having, and will not give in to.

He’s truly a horrible, flawed man.

The days pass by, and they’re pleasant - with the cat out of the bag, Ushijima can play the royal successor, though it’s mostly Oikawa holding their cover up. Aone and Futakuchi are, frankly, useless in playing the high society part – since the lobster incident Aone has to stay inside the room.

Oikawa, though. He slips into the role like breathing.

In the fallout of the lobster incident, he had talked the angry cook into the ground. The enraged man had apologised in the end, for what, he probably wasn’t even sure himself. Ushijima had lost track, too, when Oikawa started with the universe similes.

The demon strides around like he owns the entire train, charms a group of sheltered high society boys and girls into giving him expensive presents and sucking up every word falling from his lips.

Oikawa is everything Ushijima had never been able to be - and while it keeps their cover up and the staff from finding out the truth (since the cook, most staff avoids their compartment). Ever since Ushijima told Oikawa, of course something has shifted.

Now he’s talking again with Futakuchi, easy and light, but suddenly, he’s lost Oikawa. Someone who had become a valued companion to him.

It’s like Ushijima can never once be on good terms with the entire group at once. Like there needs some kind of balance.

He hates it.

 

\---

 

Oikawa finds him five hours before their destination, feeling nothing but anticipation to finally get rid of the fancy clothes and back to his comfortable tunics that suit Ushijima Wakatoshi, who has nothing to do with the Shiratorizawa family and royalty and anything high class.

Ushijima has walked to the end of the cart, from where he can see the sunset over the rails quickly disappearing in their wake. It’s a soothing view, and a perfect invitation for his nostalgia, just heavy enough for him to still be able to carry it. When he’d been younger, he had ridden this train with his family, choked up and defiant as ever. But after he’d found this view, he had felt a little better.

His past is littered with painful memories, but just this once, he wants to give the good ones a little room, wants to feel nostalgic for the happy things, because they were a part of his old life as well.

He’s not quite sure he’s ready to let go of this feeling yet when he hears the footsteps behind him. But maybe this will clear the air between Oikawa and him, so Ushijima is willing to sacrifice.

For a while, Oikawa joins him in silence, seemingly enjoying the view. But the rising sun paints his features sharply, no hint of the easy-going façade he had shown the people fawning over him. This - this is him, true and to the core, and maybe a little bit terrifying.

(Who is Ushijima kidding – Oikawa can be very terrifying.)

“Ushijima,” he says, after a while, and the fact that he calls him by his name makes Ushijima swallow. “As much as I hate to admit it, but after all we’ve been through - I do consider you a friend.”

Ushijima inclines his head, pleased to hear that from Oikawa’s mouth, but tense because Oikawa is certainly far from done yet.

“But - when I see everything you could have had, I can’t help but hate you. All this power to bring change, to do something worthwhile, to make history, and you just threw it all away.”

His words are harsh. Ushijima had not expected anything less from Oikawa.

“I did not have such a thing as power, Oikawa. I was the youngest of seven siblings. If anything, I was a puppet, meant to smile and be pleasant, an accessoire to bring out at festivities and to keep my sheltered peers entertained.”

The train rides a turn in a wide arc, and the sun slowly fades out of their vision, leaving them facing only a dawning sky now.

“You could have worked for it, made connections. You had all the potential hadnded to you on a silver platter, everything you needed to become someone memorable, and you tossed it away. For what? Running a bar?”

“Maybe you should have been in my place,” Ushijima says, quietly.

“Yeah,” Oikawa replies, too many emotions hidden beneath his clipped answer.

They’re silent for a long while, listening to the rattling of the train.

“I’m angry at you for giving up a chance I would’ve sold my soul for,” Oikawa says, arms crossed, posture tense. “I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that.”

“That’s fair enough,” Ushijima says, but he does feel bitter, because Oikawa is doing exactly what he was afraid of - disregarding what he worked so hard for. Even though it might not be considered as grand as the royal fate he left behind, The Soaring Eagle is his pride, built with blood and sweat and love, and he is endlessly fond of every broken, cluttered corner of that place.

“I sure hope that at least the drinks you serve are worth it,” Oikawa says, and there’s a grin on his face when he looks over at Ushijima. Taken aback, but pleased and grateful, Ushijima replies by standing up at full height, lip quirking up. “You’d know how great they are if you wouldn’t have set Futakuchi on fire. Fighter do get a lifelong ban, just so you know it.”

“Mmmh, I have the feeling you might just make an exception for precious Fu-chan and me.”

Ushijima snorts, and Oikawa grins wider, and they keep looking out of the window where Shiratorizawa keeps disappearing in the distance.

Karasuno promises more dangers, but a lot less baggage and drama. The worst has already happened in Shiratorizawa. After mortal peril, being forced to drag up the secrets of his past, admitting to his wrong desires concerning Futakuchi – Karasuno can throw him nothing he can't handle.

And even if it tries to - Ushijima takes one glance at the demon at his side, and knows that as a group, the four of them might just be more dangerous than anything inhabiting that land. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU GUYS thank you so much for your feedback!! I'm so grateful to anyone giving this fic a chance and telling me what they think <3 You guys rock and make me wanna work harder!! 
> 
> Btw, I have a writing twitter now!! If you wanna come talk headcanons oR JUST YELL ABOUT SEASON 2, hmu at [@citruswriting](https://twitter.com/citruswriting)
> 
> Tune in next week for misunderstandings, pegasi rats and Futakuchi finding a clever way of recycling.


	4. Ticket to ends and beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the journey to Karasuno gets postponed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mini arc!! Let's pretend I never estimated this work to have just five chapters, okay?

The bay from which our mismatched group of not-quite heroes will continue their journey is a frankly underwhelming edge of shame in the overly polished Shiratorizawa. Owned by a local landlord who feels deep hatred for the sea and can not be bothered to give in to the pleas of local activists, who would like to make the place a cozy place for the local families and few tourists making it to this small corner of the country, it lies horribly neglected. There have been multiple pleas for the landlord to sell the land, but his hatred just runs too deep to allow it to be beautiful.

Since nobody ever checks on it, eventually, people started piling their garbage there, which caused an infestation of pegasi rats - which are normal rats, only winged and much like watersnakes, ready to fight outsiders whenever. Among the colony, there is actually a deep running, peaceful family structure with no quarrels and a lot of harmony. One can often see tiny baby rats herded along in groups for flight training, possibly the cutest kindergarten one would ever see.

The pegasi rats lie in hiding, suspicious and winding up for a fight to protect their own, when the group of four finally makes it to the abandoned stretch of land. There’s only one last task at hand before they head off, because creeped out by his emotional talk with Ushijima, Oikawa had last minute settled for doing something exceptionally dumb, and succeeded. With the help of his giggling, exhilarated fanclub he’d led a raid to free the lobsters, and Aone had carried them to the beach in his water basket.

Futakuchi wipes at his eyes, whispering he’s never seen Aone happier when he kneels down to let his friends swim free, which earns him a gaze from Ushijima and Oikawa alike since Aone’s face hasn’t changed at all. What even they can tell, though, is that Aone does look much more at ease now that he got rid of the clothes and can wear his own again, which cover significantly less skin.

The group figures that if Aone is happy, they are happy, too.

Ushijima certainly is, to leave this chapter behind, eager and grateful to be lifted on Aone’s back. They spread a blanket on the least ticklish place for Aone, and sit down to relax and enjoy the sun.

The pegasi rats watch the seamonster carefully set off and figure that a fight would have probably been a bad idea before they return to live their life as they did before.

And honestly, after the weeks of stress and attacks during their journey, after curses healed and pasts uncovered, the calm of this particular part of the trip is much, much welcomed by everyone in the group.

Oikawa naps in Futakuchi's lap, Ushijima stares at the horizon they're heading towards. He sits so close to Futakuchi, their arms are almost brushing, and the warmth almost-shared between them calms him as much as it thrills him. A strange combination.

It's very, very peaceful.

That is, until the pirate ship snatches the three right off Aone’s back.

As we all know, after a life of loneliness, Aone does not respond kindly to someone going ahead and abducting the precious friends he still can't quite believe he managed to find, right off his back nonetheless. As kind of a heart and soul he is, let’s not forget that he _is_ also very much a seamonster.

And seamonsters know how to fight.

This leaves quite the sight to behold: a giant pirate ship in a lot of disarray gearing up to shoot cannons, and a very angry seamonster full-body slamming into its hull, all available limbs reaching out to try and find his lost friends.

Now in all the slashing and stabbing of tentacles, screaming, the first bombs going off and Futakuchi, Ushijima and Oikawa fighting tooth and nail to keep Aone from getting hurt in between billowing smoke, you may not be surprised that there is a lot of confusion going on.

What all these not heroes don't know is that actually, this entire fight is a huge misunderstanding.

The pirates, thinking the trio hostages, tried to save them from the monster’s back.

The monster, thinking the trio hostages, in turn keeps trying to save them from the ship.

The trio wastes a lot of breath on setting various things on fire (Oikawa) and punching people who try to slash Aone’s limbs (Ushijima), which only leaves Futakuchi yelling at every pirate around to _stop fighting his platonic soulmate now._

“Where the fuck is your captain!” he screams at last, because nobody is quite listening to him, as they are all very busy fighting a terrifying seamonster which will probably haunt them in their nightmares for decades to come.

“Right here!” comes a sharp voice behind Futakuchi.

So Futakuchi turns and is, as you may expect, kind of surprised to stare at his wife.

Nametsu, with her hair now wind-swept and held back by a bandana looks a little too sheepish for a person who suddenly has tattoos, a saber and what looks like at least three pistols on her belt. Not to mention this entire ship, and a screaming crew slashing away at Futakuchi’s soulmate.

She’s changed a lot, but as her gaze takes in the red and black marks on his skin, Futakuchi realises, so has he.

“Kenji,” she says, and her smile tries to be friendly but looks like she just bit down on a lemon. Or maybe five. “How are you doing?”

“Well!” He spreads his arms, gesturing at the chaos around. “Your crew is slashing up one of the most important people in my life and  - well, another guy, who, uh, is, important - is, I think, in a fist fight with three of your men. Not to mention the demon.”

Nametsu fidgets. “I should probably tell my men to stop fighting your friends.”

“Don’t know how you got that idea.”

That’s exactly the second the sail behind them goes up in flames. Futakuchi whirls around. “Oikawa! For fuck’s sake, I’m trying to be diplomatic here!”

Oikawa, in the middle of five terrified men looking ready to lose their life for taking him down, cups his hands around his mouth and shouts back: “They had it coming for hurting Taka-chan!”

 

\---

 

It is all a little awkward when the misunderstanding is finally cleared up.

Not even counting the married couple reunited at sea between Shiratorizawa and Karasuno, the air between them so thick with uncomfortable feelings and stiff courtesy that even the narrator is grateful not to be in either of their skin. It’s more the whole awkward feeling of ‘so we just tried to kill each other and are now still side-eyeing heavily while patching up our wounds’. The rivalry only calms down slightly once Aone formerly apologises, tearing stitches as he bows, causing the healer of the crew to tear his hair out in alarm and chide Aone.

It’s mostly Futakuchi who, in the end, takes it upon himself to fix things.

He hisses at Oikawa to stop making his eyes glow when looking at the crew, doesn’t even touch on whatever crisis Ushijima is having since it isn’t setting anyone off if he’s just brooding in a corner, and reduces Aone to a mess of fluffy feelings and absolute obedience when he strokes his forehead and asks him to rest.

And then he goes to explain the situation to the captain.

\---

 

The captain’s cabin feels really small. And quiet. This is so awkward.

It’s Nametsu who speaks first, blurting: “What on earth were you doing riding a sea monster near the Shiratorizawa border with a demon and - well, whoever that guy is who keeps glaring at me! Wait, wasn’t that the guy running the bar around the corner - ?”

Futakuchi opens his mouth, closes it, and tries to prioritise the things he wants to say piling on his tongue. “First of all, Aone is just Aone, he’s a really sweet monster. You’d like him. Anyone likes him.” That sounded a little weird, better save it by adding something that sounds more sane. “He saves lobsters.”

Nametsu’s eyebrows rise, but she doesn’t comment on that one. Maybe for the better. Futakuchi is really, really nervous. He’s babbling. Shit.

But then he sees that Nametsu is picking at the edge of her skirt, just like she always did when she was nervous. Even though now it is much shorter and she's wearing pants underneath for better … fighting, probably. And there's _yet another pistol_ and what looks like a dagger strapped to her thigh, _fine._ Despite that, she isn't an entirely different person.

That makes it easier, somehow.

“I don’t even know where to start, honestly,” Futakuchi says, running a hand through his hair. “Uh, yeah, Ushijima is the bartender of the Soaring Eagle, and long story short three of us fell through a portal, into the middle of a unicorn herd -”

“Unicorns?” Nametsu gasps.

Futakuchi lifts his hand, the marked one. “Got this souvenir.”

He keeps going from there - only now does he realise how _much_ there is to tell, even when making it as short as possible. Somehow his story just won’t find a fucking end, and when it finally does, Nametsu is gaping at him.

“That - that sounds really wild.”

“It was. And you - you’re actually a pirate captain. That’s incredible. I knew you’d make it,” he tells her, and a slow smile spreads on her lips. Her eyes are shining, and she is beautiful, almost glowing with happiness. Futakuchi feels something like fondness again, even though they are almost strangers by now.

“You did?” she asks.

“I did. You make a stunning captain. You look great. And happy. You look really, really happy.”

She beams at him, and he can see it - how the small home in Datekou could have never make her look like this, like the sea and this ship and the life she has built does. This is where she belongs, where she has finally found her happiness. A lot of things went wrong between them, but deep down, Futakuchi only ever wanted her to be happy.

“You, too,” she says, catching him off guard. “You look happy, too.”

He opens his mouth to protest, then takes a second to turn that statement over in his head, trying to match it to himself right here and now.

Is he … happy?

Earlier today he watched Aone basically squeal with his arms full of lobsters. Oikawa had been a prick again, pinching his hand to make Futakuchi wake up faster as the train had approached the station – and then continued to dance to a badly recited musical number into a hairbrush until Futakuchi had first thrown his pillow, then his entire blanket at him. They'd dissolved into a tired mess of a sort of squabble, on the most expensive way of transportation known to the magical realm.

Later, Futakuchi had nudged Ushijima’s shoulder and started talking about something, anything, to make him look less worried, less … hardened on his way leaving the country he was born in and chased from. And somehow, miraculously, Ushijima’s lips had curled into a smile and the fact that Futakuchi could … make him smile like that had felt incredible. Precious.

The past months had seen him hungry, smelling horrible, in pain, with blisters at his feet and conflicts in the group. They’d been the most exhausting months of his life. But he stood against incredible danger, victorious, had seen half the magical world, breathtaking sunsets, mountains, monuments. He met people from all across the world. He survived, and … he hadn’t been lonely, once.

These three people with him, they … they would fight alongside and for him, they already have. He’s found friendship stronger than he would have dreamed of, and maybe something different, too, in Ushijima.

Which is really awkward to think about sitting across from his wife.

Technically wife.

But, much more important than that - Nametsu is right.

Futakuchi is happy, caught up in this trainwreck of a journey. He’s happier than he’s ever been. Every ounce of hardship and pain were worth it.

So that’s what he tells her, smiling. “Yeah, I’m happy.”

She smiles back, and then she falters a little, seeming sheepish. “I’m glad, that … I don’t think I could’ve made you happy. Actually, I -” She struggles, but carries on, and Futakuchi can appreciate that. “I think I made you really unhappy, and I treated you horribly, and I - I’m incredibly sorry. I’ve gone through a talk like this a million times and I know I can never, ever make up for what I did, but - please, Kenji, you need to know that I’m truly sorry for what I did.”

There are tears in her eyes she’s trying to hold back, and Futakuchi … he feels oddly calm.

Somehow, he has made peace a long while ago. There’s no need for Nametsu to torture herself like that, not when … when they’re both here, marked by their journeys, and feeling happy where they are.

“It’s alright.”

Her head snaps up, and she stares at him. This is probably not what she expected. Futakuchi likes that he can surprise her for once - their entire relationship he’d been a steady constant. Predictable, secure. The opposite of what she wanted and needed.

“Yes, it was hard. But I didn’t treat you fair, either – we both _used_ each other and it … didn't work out. We’ve made our mistakes and it was an ugly mess, but let’s just … put it past us. Look at us, look where we are now. That’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”

She bursts into laughter, choked up, wiping at her eyes. “Yeah, that’s pretty cool.”

He grins at her, and she grins back, and a part of Futakuchi feels light and nostalgic and unbearably happy. This is a chapter of his life closed, and despite how messy it was - it did get a happy ending. What else can he ask for, really?

“One last thing, though.”

Nametsu’s smile falls, she sits up like she’s bracing for something horrible. Like she’s expecting Futakuchi to ask to hand her ship over as apology, and her honour will probably make her give in to that. Futakuchi takes a deep breath.

“Nametsu Mai, will you do me the honour of divorcing me?”

She breaks into laughter, and hugs him tightly. “I thought you’d never ask.”

\---

 

The ship is sailing to Karasuno ports anyways, so Aone gets a break and they all travel a little more comfortably. With their new found peace, and the reassurance of being a divorced man, Futakuchi feels free and light hearted and ready to take on the world.

His question of what to do with the ring is a tough one to figure out. He’s carried it all this way, always mindful of it – only to pester the truth out of Nametsu that she had simply sold hers a while ago.

Cold. (She gets unbeareably figdety and apologetic again, but Futakuchi won't let her apologise even once more. There's no need to.)

In the end he finds his answer, puts the ring on a necklace, and carries it to Aone.

He knows that his friend has a special relationship to that piece of jewellery, since it marks the end of his loneliness, the beginning of something new.

Anytime the golden glint caught Aone's eye, they would light up, his attention snatched by it. Futakuchi could … understand why. The ring had always symbolised the what it had supposed to be for Futakuchi, too: a promise that someone would be at his side. No matter what lay ahead.

Maybe like this, the ring will finally carry its true meaning, just for a different person. Futakuchi feels nervous, but he's determined to try. Besides, if he won't talk soon, Aone will probably have a minor meltdown. He's been on edge ever since Futakuchi asked him to talk alone.

“Would it be okay with you if you kept the ring?” he finally says, cutting straight to the point. Futakuchi feels a little unsure since, well, it _is_ his old wedding ring. But Aone has never cared about any of the social rules from the land. He smiles, wider than Futakuchi has ever seen, and then squeezes his eyes shut and nods, unable to utter a single word. Futakuchi's heart aches in the most pleasant way as he fastens the necklace around Aone's neck.

“I’ll always be at your side, okay?” He steps back, and smiles at his friend.

Aone nods, eyes wide. “Me, too. Always.”

And then Futakuchi hugs Aone like back then, in the cave, only this time Aone is trembling for much different reasons, and Futakuchi feels happiness down to his core, so strong it's almost scalding. The unabashed, dorky grin spreading on his face is pretty embarrassing, and yet Futakuchi can't help it. He wouldn't even want to.

Oikawa teases him about it over dinner with the crew, and Futakuchi kicks him under the table, but he doesn’t stop smiling.

 

\---

 

“You’re not very subtle, you know that?”

Ushijima flinches when the female voice rings behind him. He hadn’t known anyone else was even nearby. And, of course, it’s Futakuchi’s wife. The last person he wants to see on this damn ship. Why hadn’t they just kept going on Aone’s back, honestly. All this pirate meddling.

He really doesn’t like pirates.

Or Nametsu.

She takes a few steps forwards, so she can stand next to him and lean on the railing, look at Futakuchi doubling over with laughter and Oikawa yelling and gesturing at him, dripping wet after a wave completely soaked him.

That’s not worse than the cursed apple he ate yesterday - his face had turned purple without him noticing, not until Futakuchi had fallen off his bench with laughter. The prank curse had subsided after an hour or so, but the entire crew will still occasionally whispers ‘Apple’ and make everyone break into laughter.

Oikawa keeps gesturing, frantically, and Futakuchi keeps laughing. It’s nice, seeing him like that. Open and free, laughing so often, without even a hint of all the weight that used to hold him down and back.

“You’ve been mentally stabbing me since you first saw me,” Nametsu adds, in a light tone, like she’s talking about how sunny the weather is. Her eyes are on Futakuchi, too, and Ushijima doesn’t like the fondness in her smile. She had everything Ushijima would ever wish for, but went ahead and left Futakuchi. Left him a mess who hadn’t smiled, not anymore. Not for weeks that he’d come to the bar and bared his soul to Ushijima.

Doesn't he have every right to be mentally stabbing Nametsu? Especially since Futakuchi didn't care to do it. In fact, him and Nametsu get along swimmingly, laughing together and smiling like they share a secret.

Since Ushijima can’t deny Nametsu's words being true, he just keeps quiet.

“He’s a good man. He’s always tried to make me happy, but we just weren’t right for each other.” Nametsu looks at Ushijima now, and he keeps his gaze stubbornly ahead, feeling stiff and unsure where to put his hands. “He deserves someone he can make happy. Someone who will make him happy, too.”

Ushijima gives a confirming grunt, mostly because he doesn’t trust his voice to do much else. What's going on?

Nametsu seems not done yet with making him feel slightly nauseous and fluttery and … hopeful? That’s hope, prickling in his veins.

“You two keep looking at each other when the other doesn’t see. It’s cute. Almost a little cliché.” She giggles. “Maybe someday I'll find someone like that, too. I'm truly happy for you. Take care of him, will you?”

There's confusion and defiance he feels, mostly. If he would be allowed to, he'd take such good care of Futakuchi, no suffering would come to him again. But why is Nametsu telling him all this? Does she mean … ?

She pushes herself away from the railing, but then hesitates in her steps. Suddenly her voice is darker, lower, and Ushijima has no trouble imagining her captaining a ship of bandits any longer. “Just keep in mind that I have an entire crew behind me and the means to hunt you down.”

She turns towards him, her smile bright and lovely and Ushijima feels terrified by a woman much smaller than him who looks like the most innocent person but certainly _isn’t._ She pats his shoulder, and with that, takes her leave.

When Ushijima turns back around, Futakuchi notices him, sending him a grin with windswept hair and splotchy cheeks, and Ushijima grins back like a helpless fool.

 

\---

 

Futakuchi hugs Nametsu goodbye.

Ushijima avoids her like he’s scared of her, but that's ridiculous. Oikawa almost sets someone on fire for whispering ‘purple’ at him again. Aone and the healer of the ship keep an awkward little bowing contest up, awkwardly yelling out respectful thanks and best wishes for each other.

Their goodbye is about as much of a mess as their welcome was, only with a little less slashing and stabbing and screaming and bombs. Which is honestly a relief.

“Be careful,” Nametsu tells Futakuchi. “What does survive in Karasuno is ruthless and dangerous.”

“I think we can handle it,” he reassures her, puffing up a little. Even now, of course he'd still like to impress her – especially after she had impressed him so much, living up to every single goal she had ever set for herself.

“You better!” she almost chides, finger raised at him.

They part in peace. Futakuchi feels a little nostalgic, but not too sad about leaving her behind. She’s found her place, and so has he.

“Karasuno can’t throw us anything we can’t handle,” he says, and his friends answer with matching resolve and confident grins. The ring glints around Aone's neck, Ushijima keeps sending him sideways glances that make Futakuchi shiver in the most pleasant way, and Oikawa's eyes burn like he's ready to tear Karasuno apart, anything that might get in their way.

If anything, Futakuchi’s excited for the next adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haaah, there goes my buffer ... ! I need to pull myself together now to finally finish the Karasuno arc!!  
> Thank you guys for your support and your kind words <3 
> 
> Once more, if you feel like it, hit me up on [twitt!](https://twitter.com/citruswriting) :>
> 
> Tune in next week for our heroes finally reaching Karasuno, meeting some faces that we know but they don't, and a whole lot of sand and dust. So much sand and dust.


	5. Ticket to a whole new row of disasters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Karasuno turns out to hold even more surprises than aniticpated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /shifty eyes  
> The chapter count has always been nine chapters, hasn't it? It's not like my hand slipped and I added 13.5k that weren't planned to the Karasuno Arc which now has two parts;;;;;;;

The port of Karasuno can be considered small – the smallest by far. Not many ships even dare make it here, and the bigger ones have to stay safely anchored away from the water littered with jagged cliffs directly around land. Most people set over on small rowboats they fasten at the countless small landing stages. 

Luck has to be on the side of the unfortunate traveller to happen to end up on one of the safer landing stages – quite a few end up with unsound wood and fall right back into the water. 

Barely any deaths are registered, though – there's a very helpful kraken who tends to help the ones who drop into the water. Not seldom a person starts their journey at Karasuno drenched and dropped off on land by a helpful, gigantic tentacle. 

The harbour guard, Ennoshita, mostly does his job out of good will. There are zero regulations, so the only reason strangers don't stumble into something they're in over their heads for is his kindness to greet and explain a little bit of the ropes to them. Often times his two friends Kinoshita and Narita will keep him company in his little hut, but it's always him to greet the terrified strangers and give them some helpful advice to stay alive, if they are dumb enough to dare try crossing the country. 

(Almost nobody comes to stay, most want to leave the country behind as fast as possible.) 

The only ones living out in the wasteland are those born into its harsh embrace. 

Outsiders who do stay in the country stay in Karasuno City, which is not only the capital of the country, but quite literally the only city. It lies nestled into a valley at the bottom of a large cliff. Over time, space simply ran out in the valley, so the people started carving their way upwards. Formerly narrow and dangerous paths towards the top of the cliff turned wide enough to accommodate small carts, and a complex tunnel system was carved into the rough stone wall. 

(Again, regulated only by the people themselves – people carved where there was space, and if there was none, people carved to _make_ space. Some say there have been travellers who got lost in the tunnel system for several years, but that can't be proven. It may just be a rumour. Usually people find their way out after a week. A month, at most.) 

Of course, the further the paths wind upwards, the less approachable they become. Nobody lives too close to the cliff's top and the plains beyond – mostly because nobody is insane enough to risk their necks so high up. Besides, Karasuno depends a lot on community – your neighbors are most times like an extended family, an insurance during harsh times. So who would voluntarily choose solitude? 

The only ones reckless and determined enough to risk the paths all the way up to the cliff's edge are those who want to reach the plains beyond to cross the wasteland leading to the borders of Nekoma. 

Namely, it's going to be our four heroes in due time. 

For now, however, our attention will be on two other people whose fates will soon intermingle with those of our beloved little group. 

Like many others, they have found comfort in the mindset of Karasuno City – where everyone is worth the weight they can carry for themselves and their family, nobody thinks twice about heritage. Especially those with blood of two species find their home here. Often times disregarded by the pureblooded, they find bliss in a world that allows them to carve a place for themselves without prejudice. 

Two people of that kind are currently hurrying through the complex system of tunnels, after almost a decade here more than familiar with the path they're supposed to take. 

“It's no big deal,” the one ahead says, his voice not giving away he might be in pain, even when the grey feathers of his wings are stained with blood and only crudely wrapped in bandages. “Stop freaking out.” 

His name is Yahaba, and despite an appearance suited for an angel, the colour of his feathers give away to any keen eye that he is a half-blood, closer to the human side, actually. 

There is nothing angelic about him despite his looks, that much his friends know. 

“Everyone has it and no one can lose it, what is it?” his friend Watari snaps back without thinking, voice tight. (Not what he had intended to answer, and a clear sign that he is definitely freaking out.) 

Much like Yahaba, Watari is closer to the human side of his heritage – but the sphinx blood in his veins does not only make him crave raw, bloody meat (harsh for a vegetarian), but also makes him prone to slip into riddles whenever he gets stressed enough to lose his self-control. 

“A shadow, Watari,” Yahaba replies, annoyance making his voice flippant. “That was a weak one. Get a grip.” 

“I've got a grip! I've got the riddles under control.” 

“Do you?” Yahaba asks, doubtful. Watari bites his lips, and fights a futile internal struggle before choking out: “What has Kyoutani given to you that you can't actually hold?” 

“A headache. A dozen of them, actually. And this one is the _worst_ so far.” 

“ _His heart,”_ Watari stresses, causing Yahaba to stumble for a step. His wings flare out to balance him, and he winces at the sting from the wound. 

(Jumping at one of the foxes had been a pretty bad idea.) 

They're all half-bloods, too, but damn are their teeth sharp. The shapeshifting blood is _strong_ in them. He's going to be fine, but the damage is annoying, and Kyoutani will probably pick a much worse fight, and _that_ Yahaba can't allow. 

“Don't be ridiculous,” Yahaba huffs, not realising that Watari is desperately trying to explain the reasoning behind the mess despite his tongue being tied with riddles. “Hey, you want a riddle, too? What am I gonna give Kyoutani he can't actually hold?” 

“Your heart,” Watari replies easily, and Yahaba growls under his breath. 

“A piece of my mind,” he corrects through gritted teeth. “This idiot better not be getting himself into more trouble.” 

  
  


\---

  
  


The so-called idiot named Kyoutani, meanwhile, lies in pursuit at the edge of the valley, right where the flood of scattered huts washes against the rough wall of stone.

He is about to get himself into a whole lot of trouble. 

The area here is barely populated, the cliffs here almost untouched except for small paths and scattered tunnel entrances, small ones which lead to the busier paths. 

The fact that barely a soul is to be seen here works quite well for Kyoutani's intentions. 

Since the full moon is nearing, his senses are heightened, eyes trained on a single human man waiting in front of a tiny store. 

(It's owned by a horrible woman called Scarlet, who usually sells to the outsiders who think they can take on the wasteland without dying.) 

Kyoutani wrinkles his nose. He really dislikes the owner – Scarlet likes whacking him with newspapers. They're all old and yellow ones, brought over from Shiratorizawa. There's no actual newspapers in Karasuno, which Kyoutani is grateful for, else more people might try to hit him with them. 

Scarlet's not-or-maybe-wife Mizushima isn't much nicer, either. 

But that man, he looks like an easy target. Sure, he seems pretty tall, but size isn't an indicator of strength. Foreigners are most times easy targets, they can't live up to what Karasuno throws them. People like Kyoutani, with fangs and canine instincts. And a debt to pay to the foxes. 

Honestly, this order had been a bad idea from the get-go. Damn Watari. Kyoutani would never listen to him again. 

(Not that he would have struck the deal in the first place without having the actual money to pay. Only _shit_ happened and when Watari got sick, medicine had become much more important.) 

So, now he will have to rob a foreigner. Without really hurting him, of course – and leaving enough so that he won't starve or something. Kyoutani isn't cruel, he's just desperate. 

And this man just happens to seem like a perfectly easy target. 

Little does Kyoutani know the man he's eyeing is Ushijima Wakatoshi, who may be a human, but even with the rest of his quite intimidating group squeezed into the shop to grab scarves and goggles, this man is a force to be reckoned with on his own. 

Brows furrowed, the unsuspecting werewolf teen tries to find a way to lure Ushijima away from the shop entrance and into the back alley. Before anyone could take notice the ambush, it would already be over. Kyoutani would climb the cliff, race along the path and slip into a tunnel entrance, following it right towards a big crossroad where he could become one additional anonymous face. 

Almost like a miracle, today one of Scarlet's horrible cats helps him out. It lets out a pitiful yelp at the sight of an empty milk bowl. (Spoiled brat.) 

Kyoutani covers his mouth with both his hands to keep himself from barking at the cat until it runs and never comes back. The full moon is drawing closer, so it's a _lot_ harder to resist any of his urges. 

(Yahaba, that ruthless bastard, like tossing something and calling 'Fetch' around this time of month only to laugh at Kyoutani's inability to resist the need to rush after whatever object is thrown. Kyoutani usually keeps it and never gives it back to teach Yahaba a lesson.) 

(A lesson that never really sticks.) 

The stranger hears another one of the weak-ass, pointless whines and moves to investigate. As soon as the man is out of sight of the shop and main street, Kyoutani immediately jumps at him. 

The cat screams and runs. (Kyoutani does not chase it but he feels satisfied with scaring it anyway. Serves that weak-ass pointy-eared fur bundle right!) 

The man makes a surprised little noise. 

Granted, anyone would be surprised if they went to see whether a cat needed help and got jumped at by a terrifying stranger with wide, glowing eyes and sharp teeth bared. 

But, what poor Kyoutani doesn't know and we do: Ushijima is the owner of the Soaring Eagle. 

One time on a rare day off for Swan, he'd chased away two grown wolves seeking trouble with only a broom and an apron. Nobody really knows what the apron was used for, or if it was only decorative - the stories all differ vastly. What everyone agrees on is that it was pretty epic, though. 

Also, he has dealt with a lot of werewolf teenagers in his life, and a soft spot for them. Even when this one looks different from the ones he sees in Datekou, in the end, they're all troubled kids with fangs and mood swings depending on the moon cycle. 

So, being who he is, Ushijima ducks out of the way first and foremost. With his growl cutting off right into a gurgled hiss, Kyoutani manages to catch his fall barely, knocking into a pile of boxes with his shoulder, which comes crashing down in a wave of noise and regret. 

Still unimpressed, he catapults himself out of the unfolding chaos, again to attack the infuriating man who had dodged him like he was moving in slow motion. 

Ushijima grabs for a nearby stick, dodges the attack, and lightly taps Kyoutani's back. Not to do any damage, just to prove he could hold his own if he chose to fight. 

“No,” he says, a definite command. This tone of voice, combined with intense eye contact, usually works with just about anyone making trouble in his bar. And especially well with Kyoutani, who is rooted in place, fangs bared and growling, but unable to look away or move from his place. 

He blinks heavily, fighting for composure. 

“This is an ambush,” he growls. “Just give me your fuckin' money and I'll spare you!” 

“You are not robbing me,” Ushijima says, all authority. 

“Watch me!” Kyoutani snaps back, but the second he takes a step forwards, Ushijima draws himself up to full height and takes a menacing step towards him. Kyoutani flinches half a step back reflexively, swallowing a whine forming at the back of his throat. 

“You are not robbing me. Out of your fighting stance.” 

“Like hell I'm gonna - !” Kyoutani shouts back, every instinct telling him to surrender. 

“ _Now._ ” 

His body relaxes, and Kyoutani throws his hands up in the air in infuriation. _Fuck_ the full moon. 

“Very good,” Ushijima says, and the canine part of Kyoutani feels eagerly pleased at the praise, while his human counterpart is kicking his feet in frustration. Usually only his friends know how easily Kyoutani can be tamed, Kyoutani _always_ wins fights because his fangs and claws are _lethal._ As long as people don't talk him into full surrender. 

Ushijima raises both his hands in a placating gesture, dropping the makeshift weapon. “Stay put,” he says, soothingly. Kyoutani snarls, but stays where he is. “Good boy, good boy. You're not going to rob me today. You're not going to rob anyone. What is it that you need?” 

Kyoutani kicks his feet again. “Like hell I'll tell you,” he grumbles under his breath. This is embarrassing _as hell_ , and if his canine side wouldn't keep him rooted in place, he'd just make a break for it by now. 

“Is it food? Money? Tell me,” Ushijima says in a more authoritative voice, and Kyoutani cracks immediately. 

What the heck is it with that guy?! Even Watari usually needs longer to get to him like that. 

“I've got a dumb debt to pay!” He kicks his feet again, sidestepping nervously, but Ushijima moves right with him and keeps his idiotic big frame in full view, his entire posture still keeping Kyoutani in place. 

“Substances are no way to -” 

“It's not that!” Kyoutani snaps, now truly angry. What the fuck does that guy know about him?! “Watari and Yahaba would kill me! I don't do shit like that! I just -” He bites his lip, a bad habit that occasionally still lets him draw blood, but not this time. 

“I'm relieved,” Ushijima tells him honestly. He's always had a strange knack to feel immediately responsible for the young and lost ones, and Kyoutani is no exception, even though, by all means – he does not even know the name of the boy before him. 

“So what?” Kyoutani spits, still trying to find a way to get the fuck away from that stranger. The fact how _calm_ that guy is in the face of a failed ambush creeps him the fuck out. 

“Look, I could help -” Ushijima begins, but that's when Kyoutani hears the footsteps. 

He bares his fangs again, helplessly. _They_ have found him and it's way, _way_ too early. The foxes have already closed in on them, that much Kyoutani senses, even without seeing them yet. 

“Now, now, there's no more use in running,” one of them calls. He steps forwards, so that his stupidly pretty features and his sly smile are in perfect sight. Kyoutani's growl intensifies. “Konoha.” 

“Kyoutani,” the fox replies in kind, inclining his head as if he gave a shit about formal gestures. Konoha's ears twitch, and the sly smile hasn't left his face. “It's time to pay your debts before that angel of yours will cause more trouble.” 

Ushijima notices how Kyoutani's entire body goes rigid at the mention of that 'angel'. It is a comfort to Ushijima, to know that the boy has someone he cares for so much.

The decision isn't really a decision. Being delayed a day or two in their journey is no problem – there's more than enough time for Ushijima to help the teenager out. 

“What have you done to him?!” Kyoutani demands to know, not waiting for an answer. He's about to take off when a strong grip wraps around his biceps, keeps him in place. The man next to him shakes his head lightly, the expression in his eyes dark and grave. Kyoutani shivers. 

“The question is, what has he done to us?” Konoha replies calmly. “Quite a wild one the second your name drops. Not that I care for your personal business – you bought the brooches, you need to pay up. Weren't you aware of that?” 

Kyoutani's growl is barely a vibration in his throat anymore. Of course he was aware he'd have to pay. The only thing he hadn't been aware of was half his savings going into medicine for Watari. 

“Did you hurt him?” Kyoutani demands to know instead of replying. 

Konoha sits down at the edge of the cliff, one leg dangling over it, one propped up on the edge. He heaves a sigh. “My, my. He will be okay, don't you worry. Can we talk business now? How are you going to repay us? We need to come up with a solution since you don't seem to have the money.” 

Ushijima calmly raises his hand in the tension all around. Both Kyoutani and Konoha stare at him in confusion. 

“And you would be?” Konoha asks.

“Ushijima Wakatoshi,” he replies without missing a beat. “I'm willing to pay for the debt.” 

  
  


\---

  
  


“Where the fuck did Ushiwaka-chan go?” Oikawa frowns. “I won't carry his stuff for him!” 

Futakuchi nonchalantly grabs the bundle from Oikawa, looking around himself. What the hell? Ushijima was here just a minute ago. Aone stops fumbling with his new scarf, worry and confusion in his eyes. 

“Just perfect,” Futakuchi hisses. “I love losing people in unknown cities everyone warns you of.” 

“You heard those cluttering noises before, too, didn't you?” Oikawa asks, eyes narrowed. Without another word, he strides ahead, around the house. Futakuchi follows, Aone on his heels. The slight worry gnawing at him is probably a waste of time, knowing Ushijima – and still. Hadn't Nametsu told him a million times how dangerous Karasuno was? 

The second they round the corner, _something_ attacks. It barrels right into Oikawa, pushing him aside and throwing him to the ground. 

Futakuchi drops all safety cautions along with the bundle he's holding, shifting into stance, drawing power from the earth. 

There's wild flapping of wings, and someone calls “What do you and a broken spell have in common?!” 

Aone seems ready to jump into a physical fight, too, but before they can move, Oikawa has already pinned down his attacker. It's a boy with grey wings, flapping wildly as Oikawa presses him down and levels a glare at him, scrutinising. 

“Oh, kid,” Oikawa drawls. “You do not want to pick this fight.” 

“Let go of me!” The boy spits back, still struggling against the grip holding him down. Futakuchi has to give it to him, still standing up to Oikawa in such a situation takes guts – or desperation. “What have you done to him?!” 

“Strange,” Oikawa almost sing-songs, softly, but tone cold enough to make anyone shiver. “I was just about to ask you the same.” 

“Don't hurt him!” There's another boy, stumbling forwards, hands up in a placating gesture. “Please, he doesn't mean it.”

“I damn right mean it!” the struggling boy hisses. 

“Yahaba,” the other boy pleads. “This isn't getting us anywhere, please don't make it worse -” 

Oikawa's hand stays closed around the neck of the boy beneath him, still thrashing with wings flapping wildly. 

The demon's eyes glow red. “You wouldn't happen to know where a friend ours is, would you now? If I were you I'd rather speak up before it's too late.” 

The teenager who isn't held on the damn ground by Oikawa stumbles forwards, hands still up. Futakuchi can read the desperation on his face – the reluctance to attack Oikawa, and the resolve to do so anyway, to save his friend from the demon's grip. 

“Please don't hurt him,” he pleads. “We don't know anything about your friend. We're looking for a friend, too.” 

That's when it hits Futakuchi just what they must look like – for goodness' sake, those two are teenagers, one of them is hurt, and clearly they're just as desperate as them. 

“That's enough, Tooru,” he snaps, and lets go of the magic he had been about to unleash. Futakuchi exhales with slight relief as it slips back into the earth – then moves over and nonchalantly drags Oikawa off by the collar. 

“Let go, Fu-chan,” Oikawa grumbles, finding his footing and fixing the crooked collar of his battered cape. 

“We're sorry,” Futakuchi tells the teenagers. The angel kid sits up, rubbing at his neck and still sending Oikawa glares. His friend hurries to his side, hands flitting over him as if checking for injuries. 

“I'm fine,” Yahaba mutters at his friend, moving to smooth down his feathers, shaking some of the dust out. 

Futakuchi winces as he sees the crude bandage around it. 

“I think if anything, we should help each other out,” he adds, quickly. 

Aone nods, clearly worried, too. 

Oikawa rubs at his neck. “I guess I lost my temper there for a second. How unbecoming.” 

Futakuchi kicks Oikawa's shin with the side of his foot. 

“I'm sorry,” the demon adds, sugar-sweet, elbowing Futakuchi in the side sharply. 

The worried friend of the angel kid looks beyond grateful, and Futakuchi's fingers curl into fists. Jeez, they'd been the biggest jackasses here. 

Time to amend. 

  
  


\---

  
  


“You've got quite the fire in you, don't you?” Oikawa asks, and Futakuchi knows the demon well enough to hear the admiration for Yahaba in his voice. The kid sits next to him, munching on a snack. He looks flustered. 

“Not usually,” he mutters. 

Watari perks up. “Lies!” he calls easily. “You just have it better in check, usually. Unless it's about Kyou-” 

“ _Shut up,_ ” Yahaba hisses defensively, burying his face in his hands when he realises he apparently just proved a point. 

“See,” Watari says, grinning. It makes Futakuchi's heart a little lighter, to see him smile again. 

“Hold still now,” he chides gently, and Watari complies. Futakuchi had offered to heal Yahaba's wing, but instead the kid had stubbornly insisted Futakuchi cure the lingering remains of the sickness in his friend first and foremost. 

If his resources would hold up, Futakuchi was determined to move on to Yahaba's wing next, just to speed up the healing process. But even if he wouldn't be able to, Aone's hands are gentle as he's putting to use what the healer of Nametsu's ship taught him. Yahaba is in best hands. 

Aone is always eager to learn about new things, but this one seems to have really, really struck a chord with him. 

There's a little medical school in Futakuchi's hometown, and sometimes he catches himself imagining it – sharing his empty home with Aone, signing him up for those lessons. 

Visiting Ushijima in the Soaring Eagle, maybe – asking him out on actual dates. 

Home seems inviting and exciting, somehow. Even though it's still a long way until they'll reach it, and, well. Futakuchi has to _find_ Ushijima first. 

“So what are we dealing with?” he asks at last, barely able to hide the strain in his voice from the magic he's working on Watari. 

It's not complicated, but that's what you get from dishing out ridiculous amounts of magic like it's nothing over and over, without a mean of channelling it properly. Despite not having touched magic in the weeks since the curse, his natural resources have barely recovered – even this little exhausts Futakuchi. 

(“Waka-chan wouldn't want you to use magic at all,” Oikawa had said, but Futakuchi had only shrugged. 

“Wakato- Ushijima isn't back yet.”) 

At first, nobody actually replies to Futakuchi's question. Instead, Watari and Yahaba freeze up, their eyes clouded with worry. This seems bad. Really, really bad. 

“I'm afraid the foxes found them,” Watari says. His voice is grave like a death sentence. Futakuchi is relieved when he finishes the magic, leaving the boy before him healed completely. He drops his hands into his lap, sighing as the strain of holding the magic up leaves him.

“The foxes?” Oikawa asks. Two words, and he already sounds ready to rip them apart, whoever they are. 

“They're a group of bandits,” Yahaba grits out. “Ruthless. If that idiot wouldn't have – everyone _knows_ they're bad news -” 

“Kyoutani struck a deal with them,” Watari fills in the blanks his friend's statement left. “But since I needed medicine he couldn't pay his debt. And the foxes usually ...” He trails off, biting his lip. 

“Is it pain or death?” Oikawa asks bluntly, cutting right to the point. “As a way to pay the debt.” 

“Pain resulting in death,” Yahaba says, staring blankly ahead. His hands curls in his lap like he's preparing for a fight, even though there is nothing they can do right now. Futakuchi is doing the same. 

Nothing _guarantees_ that Ushijima is even with this Kyoutani guy – but their group has a track record of always getting into the most dangerous situations, so something tells Futakuchi that _of course_ he is. 

“How do we get them back?” Aone asks. His face is set in the same determination burning inside Futakuchi. 

“Why, go right to the source, of course,” Oikawa declares. His words are sweet, dripping with venom in a way that makes everyone shiver, just a little. “Do you know where their hide-out is? I feel like roasting some foxes.” 

  
  


\---

 

Oikawa feels the lingering gazes on him, they've been going on for a while now. He scratches his neck, clicking his tongue lightly. “What is it?” 

Yahaba flinches, sidestepping a little to bring more distance between them. The kid is pretty intimidated by him, now that he's not hyped up on adrenaline any longer. “I'm s-sorry, I didn't mean to -” 

“Well, don't worry,” Oikawa interrupts the stammering. “I don't usually rip out throats without reason, so whatever it is you wanna ask me so badly, I probably won't kill you for it.” 

“That's … reassuring,” Yahaba answers with furrowed brows. 

Oikawa smiles brightly. “Isn't it?” 

Futakuchi has taken the lead of their hiking mission up the cliffs – finding the way is easy enough by now, there is literally only one small path that leads continuously upwards – and Watari and Aone follow, quietly talking among each other. 

Oikawa can't quite tell what they're talking about, he's more occupied with his little shadow. 

There've been demons twice Yahaba's age and power who had been more intimidated by Oikawa – this boy has guts. And questions burning on his tongue. 

When he still doesn't say anything, but his gaze lingers on Oikawa's horns for roughly the _fiftieth_ time, Oikawa snaps. “No, I'm not a pureblood. But neither are you, judging by the colour of your wings.” 

Yahaba bites his lip and kicks out at the dust. He thinks it's sneaky, but it's not at all. 

Oikawa feels more amused than annoyed. “What does that have to do with anything?” he asks him, truly a little curious. “Do you care about blood that much?” 

“Do I have a choice?” Yahaba shoots back. He smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes.

That expression reminds Oikawa a lot of who he used to be. 

“You do,” he says, with the conviction of a person who had been in this boy's shoes, and Yahaba seems to catch on. His head flies around, staring at Oikawa unabashed. His eyes are hungry for an answer that is different than the ones he has gotten all his life, Oikawa can tell. 

“Do you think they didn't tell me, too, that I could never be more than a weak half-blood?” 

“But … you're strong,” Yahaba says. He talks slow and deliberately, as if he's trying to piece something together in his mind. “Stronger than some pure-blooded demons I've seen,” he adds, and a smile curls on Oikawa's lips. “So despite your horns, I couldn't believe you weren't … were you really born with weaker abilities than those with pure demon blood?”

Oikawa chuckles dryly. “Oh, you bet. I was so much weaker than them, and they had a stellar time letting me know.” 

“But then ...” Yahaba falters. “How are you so ...” He fails to find the the words, gesturing instead. 

Oikawa feels pride, to be standing here right now, like this - and maybe some relief at being able to tell this kid how _wrong_ everyone else is, once _you_ decide just what and who you're going to be. 

“Do you want to know a secret, Yahaba?” 

Yahaba is probably trying really hard to keep his composure, but his eyes are practically sparkling. “Please … !” he says, voice laced with admiration and respect. It makes Oikawa puff up a little. Someone who _does_ know to appreciate his wisdom! 

“Your blood, at most, equals to the soil you sprout from. The circumstances might allow others to grow faster, easier – but you can close that gap yourself. This -” He snaps his fingers, creating a small flame from thin air effortlessly, allowing it to dance and curl around his fingertips. Yahaba seems entranced by it, hanging on to his every word. “This is the result of something simple you can achieve just as easily. If you're determined enough, that is.”

Yahaba stops moving. He seems breathless with anticipation, brimming with will to change whatever card fate has dealt him. Oikawa has a feeling he won't have trouble with determination, that one. 

“Please,” Yahaba says again, his words edged with desperation. “Tell me. I want to be stronger! If I … “ He bites his lip and trails off. “If I could just make use of what little magic flows in my veins … then I could be the one healing my friends, and a mess such as this would never have to happen in the first place -” 

“The secret is hard work,” Oikawa says, obviously catching Yahaba off guard. 

“That's it?” he asks, brows furrowed. He sounds disappointed. 

“That's it?” Oikawa repeats dangerously, taking a wide stride forwards, easily breaching the space between the two of them. “If you want to reach what those with natural abilities have, you need to push yourself _harder_ than any of them. When you're beat down, when you're ready to cry and give up, that's when you pick yourself up off the ground and _keep going._ ” 

Yahaba almost flinches away from his intensity, but does not break eye contact. Oikawa carefully keeps the glow of his eyes concealed, a piercing gaze enough to drive his point home. “If you want to prove them wrong, you need to fight harder, go further, do the _impossible_ for it. And let me tell you one thing.” Only now he allows the glow – enveloping his skin, radiating off him. It's a tactic for intimidation he does not use often, but this is an impression that matters. “It's worth it, all of it, in the end.” 

Yahaba gasps, his lip quivering, no other sound escaping him. There's fear in his eyes – and more. Much, much more. Oikawa smiles. 

“I can see it, Yahaba. You want to be stronger so bad, I know you'll reach your goal.”

The teenager curls his fists at his side, face scrunched up. “Everyone's always told me it's out of reach for someone like me.” 

“Well?” Oikawa asks, the powers he has worked so hard for still on display. “Am I just anyone?” 

Yahaba shakes his head. “No … you're more. Way more.” 

“And I'm telling you.” Oikawa extinguishes the flame in his hands so he can tap a finger against Yahaba's chest. “You will be more, too. Don't listen to anyone telling you otherwise. Just concentrate on proving them wrong.” 

Yahaba swallows, still stunned into silence. 

“Besides,” Oikawa adds. “I believe in you! So if a person as great as me does, I can only be right, don't you think?” 

Yahaba snorts, and a goofy grin steals itself on his face. “I guess that's true,” he says, thoughtful. 

“That's 'Yes, great demon king!' to you!” Oikawa declares. 

“Since when were you a King?”

“I liked you better when you were less cheeky and more intimidated,” Oikawa tells him, even though that's not quite the truth. The group is much farther ahead of them, having come to a confused stop, so Oikawa hurries to catch up with them again. “Now, excuse me as I rinse my mouth from that horrible metaphor.” 

“... horrible metaphor?” Yahaba repeats, clearly confused, falling into step close behind him. 

Oikawa waves his hand. “The one with the soil. It's a metaphor a really horrible person I know likes to use.” 

“What's so bad about that person? Is it a pureblood demon?” 

“Eh, he's nobody like that,” Oikawa replies, waving his hand. “He's the asshole I'm risking my neck for, going up against that shapeshifting gang of delinquents.” 

  
  


\---

  
  


“This is all my fault,” Watari mutters under his breath anxiously. 

Aone's brows furrow. He doesn't like it when people blame themselves for bad things happening. He's seen all his friends do that. Take the blame for something that's not their fault. 

Words still don't come quite easily to Aone, but he wants to try anyways. “I think you're wrong,” he says, as kindly as he can. It's probably not kind enough. Outside of his group, most people Aone talks to still get a little … strange. Like whatever he does, it's always the wrong way to speak, to look, to act. 

But Watari's gaze isn't scared at all. If anything, he looks a little grateful, even though the corners of his eyes stay tight with something like pain. Aone is pretty sure that's what it is. 

“But it's my fault,” Watari says, voice still low. Like he doesn't want anyone but Aone to know. 

Aone's chest swells with that realisation. Does Watari deem his trustworthy? How incredible. 

“I mean … when Kyoutani asked me … – you can't tell anyone else, okay?”

Aone wants to tell Watari that _trust_ is something so precious to him, he would never betray it. (Or that he'd probably lack the words to in the first place.) But he presses his lips together and nods, as earnestly as possible. It seems to be enough for Watari, whose smile is kind. 

“Kyoutani asked me how to tell Yahaba about his feelings … and I got nervous, so I riddled. I told him he'd have to gift Yahaba the most valuable good. The answer was _the truth_ , plain and simple! But he went and got into debts, trying to buy something valuable from the foxes. All because I don't have my own tongue under control.” 

Watari ducks his head. 

Aone wants to repeat that it's not his fault, but even he can see that Watari will not be comforted by that. His friend is in danger. The only way to make him feel better is to bring Kyoutani back. 

And Ushijima, too. 

There is really only one thing to say. “No matter what. Let's save them!” 

Watari smiles up at him. “Having someone so reliable with me sure feels reassuring,” he says, and Aone's shoulders feel heavy with sudden responsibility he is more than willing to carry and live up to. 

  
  


\---

  
  


Eventually, all talks come to a halt. The last of the winding path up the cliffs is barely wide enough for one person at a time to move along slowly and with great care. 

One wrong step would cost a life. 

As we established earlier, nobody would voluntarily make a home so far up – but that doesn't count for people who very much do not want to be found. It's an ideal hide-out nobody would climb up towards, if they hadn't such urgent business. 

Especially Aone struggles with the height – he's not used to being anywhere above ground, shaking and trembling. Futakuchi walks close behind, hand resting on his biceps whenever Aone hesitates, offering unspoken comfort until Aone hesitantly starts walking again. 

Yahaba is unfazed by the height, despite his hurt wing – his instincts tell him there is nothing unsettling about the ground giving out under him. Instead, his thoughts are stuck on the words Oikawa told him – his mind set ablaze with possibilities _._

As the only one who actually grew up in Karasuno, Watari, too, is unfazed by the thin edge he's moving along. The chords of anxiety tightening on him stem from the fact alone that there is no way of knowing whether Kyoutani is unharmed. And that in Watari's book, it's his fault alone. 

Oikawa's burning resolve makes other worries crumble to dust – in his mind he's already facing a delinquent gang of shapeshifters, claws aching to teach them to never, _ever_ dare mess with the people he holds dear.

Their way upwards is a slow, nerve-wrecking struggle for everyone. 

But eventually, they make it. Yahaba is the first to squint against the dust whirling in the air so close to the edge. They've reached a small plateau, with a hut hammered between a corner in the rocks. 

It's much larger than anticipated – even though none of them know how many foxes there are in the first place. All that is known about the bandits are the rumours, one darker than the next. They seem to be everywhere at once, always ready to strike if you got on their bad side. 

Which Oikawa is very willed to do right now. 

“It's time,” he says darkly. His companions nod, nervousness almost palpable in the air around them. 

  
  


Futakuchi has a horrible feeling about this. Then again, when does he ever _not_ as soon as one of them goes missing? Come to think of it, it's always ever been him before … maybe that's why he's this on edge. 

Being lost is so much easier than not knowing whether a person he cares about so much is unharmed. 

(A person he still has so many things to tell.) 

“Do you really think they dragged them all the way up here?” Futakuchi asks, squinting into the dawn slowly eating away at the former colours of the sky, darkness seeping across the firmament. It's taken them ages to find this hideout. 

Too long. Way too long. Anything could've happened by now. 

“They're ruthless predators,” Oikawa says. “I wouldn't put it past them. Anyways – Yahaba, Watari, Aone – you three wait here.” 

The protest is so immediate it's almost comical. 

“No way!” Yahaba yelps. 

“I can't do that,” Watari replies seriously. 

And there's a flat-out “No” from Aone. 

Oikawa throws his hands in the air. “I'm only trying to look out for you guys! Watari, Yahaba, the first time you faced them didn't go that well, did it now? Besides, Aone, you may be strong, but you're not used to fighting in your humanoid form, so –“ 

“I can fight,” Aone declares, eyes ablaze. “They won't take my friend.” 

Yahaba balls his fists. “And I won't just sit back!” 

Watari nods. 

Futakuchi sighs. “All we can do is keep them safe,” he tells Oikawa, and offers his hand – the marked one. The demon only stares at it, then back up into Futakuchi's face. As if he doesn't _realise_ what it is that Futakuchi is asking of him. “This counts as code unicorn,” Futakuchi says, bristling. “So take my damn hand and magic!” 

“I'm not taking your magic!” Oikawa snaps back. “Do you think I want to kill you?!” 

“Don't make this harder than it needs to be!” Futakuchi's getting nervous, because the rational part of him _knows_ Oikawa is right. But Ushijima has been taken by terrifying shapeshifting _monsters_ who apparently like to torture their prey before feeding off them. The thought is so unbearable, Futakuchi would rather take a risk than sit back and watch, helplessly. 

There's not much he's got going for a proper offense. This is his only shot – multiplying Oikawa's power. 

“Oikawa is right, you shouldn't use magic,” Aone agrees, and Futakuchi narrows his eyes at his friend. Aone meets his gaze unflinchingly, and with a big sigh, Futakuchi surrenders. 

“Thank you, Taka-chan,” Oikawa says. “Now, there's no use in arguing instead of moving – I say we simply _act,_ barge in head first, no questions asked. I keep them occupied, you find our friends and make a run for it. Just make sure to stay behind me, I won't let anyone get hurt. All clear?”

That plan sounds horribly thought out. But the thing is – it feels like they don't need a plan in the slightest. Not with Oikawa leading them, his eyes burning with determination and confidence. The way he holds himself, stands there waiting for their approval – there is no other person Futakuchi would rather follow into a den of deadly shapeshifters. Entrusting his life to Oikawa's hands in that moment feels like the safest bet. 

Oikawa's gaze meets his, a question in his eyes, but Futakuchi only squares his shoulders. 

“Sounds perfect to me.” 

The other three agree. 

Oikawa's grin turns wicked. “Then let's teach them a lesson they will never forget.” 

  
  


  
  


He hides it well, the tension running high in his body, Oikawa knows that much – but there's no doubt in his mind that they will be victorious in the first place. 

If there's anxiety it only comes from not knowing what might have happened while they had been uselessly searching, wasting half a day away. He doesn't let himself get caught up in those thoughts, though. Right here and now, he's the leader of an ambush on something that is almost literally a lion's den. 

The lives of his friends – the ones he would burn down forests and cities for, and those he only got to know just now – their lives are at stake, rest in his hands. His fingers are curled loosely around a spark in his palms that will create the wall of protection for those he cares about, and become a deadly weapon for anyone opposing them. 

If they so much as touched Ushijima – just Kyoutani even – Oikawa will repay them tenfold and make them regret their pitiful lives until today. 

There's no hiding as they approach the hut, just openly striding towards enemy territory. 

“Let's do this,” Oikawa mutters under his breath, raises his leg, and kicks in the door. 

  
  


\---

  
  


“It's boooring!” Bokuto declares, kicking his feet under the table. He squints over, but Akaashi sits utterly unmoved, eating his porridge. He must have not heard him! “It's bo-o-o-o-o-ring!” he says much more clearly. 

Akaashi sighs and Bokuto grins. His friend digs his spoon into the porridge again, but doesn't lift it back to his mouth yet. “You should eat,” he says, but it's more of a sigh still. “Then you could go play with the others.”

Bokuto's stuck at the table 'cause he won't eat, but Akaashi eats the slowest when Bokuto refuses to, so it's fine, he's not even lonely. Besides, there is totally no need for him to eat the dumb food! He shakes his head wildly. “Nah! I don't need to! I'm an adult now!” 

Akaashi wrinkles his nose. He always does that. “Since when are you an adult? You're a kid like everyone and Konoha-san says you have to eat your porridge.” 

“O ho ho!” Bokuto laughs, perking up. “But it's my birthday today! And now I'm 10 years old! You wouldn't understand, you don't know the responsibility that comes with a zero in your age, Akaashi!” 

Akaashi keeps wrinkling his nose. “You say it's your birthday everyday.” 

“Today, I know it is!” Bokuto says confidently. “I feel it in my bones! I'm 10 now, so I don't have to eat my porridge! Isn't that right?” he asks the strange teenager at the table brightly. 

He's new, Bokuto's never seen him before! The stranger looks a little intimidating, not really like a fox, more like a … dog? But Konoha said it's okay that he's here. And Bokuto needs to be brave so Akaashi won't be scared! 

That's what a ten year old boy needs to do for his bestest friend in the world. 

Besides, teenagers might be scary, but Bokuto fears nothing except the tooth fairy. (And it's only logical to fear someone who steals teeth.) 

The stranger gives a grunt that could mean anything. Bokuto is sure it's a confirmation! “See,” he says, puffed up with pride. 

Akaashi chews his bite carefully before he speaks. (He never talks with his mouth full, which Konoha and Kaori appreciate but Bokuto finds totally weird.) 

“There's even guests today. We never have guests. You shouldn't be bored.” 

Bokuto kicks his feet again, pounding his fists on the table. “But I want something cool to happen!” he yells, and for months after that he will be convinced he has the magic to make things happen because right that second the door bursts open. 

Bokuto's grin turns so wide his cheeks hurt and he forgets to breathe for a little. 

A man rushes in and he's _literally_ on fire! But he's not even bothered by it! There's horns on his head! A demon?! And he's shouting stuff like the heroes in the books Kaori reads to them! 

Bokuto scrambles off the bench, making an unwilling noise when Akaashi firmly grips his sleeve and pulls him under the table. “Let me go!” Bokuto says hastily but something about Akaashi's expression keeps him under the table. Bokuto makes sure to at least crawl forwards so he can put his elbows on the bench and get a good peek at what's happening. 

“Hide!” Bokuto can hear Konoha shout. He probably means Komi and the others! The guy with the fire keeps shouting stuff, too, and there are _so! many! people! behind him!_

“Uwaaah!” Bokuto gasps, wide-eyed. It's not like he's scared, but Akaashi probably is, so he holds his hand to comfort him. 

“I feel merciful today, so if you give our friends back unharmed, nobody has to get hurt!” the demon calls. “Each passing second grinds at my patience, though~” 

His flames are growing. Woah, woah, woah! What's going on?! It's not dangerous, right?! (Everyone always says fire is dangerous but nobody ever said fire on a person is dangerous.) 

(Is it dangerous?!)

“This is a misunderstanding!” Konoha calls and rushes forward. Bokuto's never heard him like that before. He squeezes Akaashi's hand more tightly. “Not _in here!”_

The dog teenager from the table got up, too, but it's all really chaotic and Bokuto isn't sure what's going on. 

“You should've thought about that before you took the people you took,” the fire guy hisses at Konoha and his flames just keep growing. Is this really just a magic show? It has to be, but something strange crawls up Bokuto's throat. 

“Konoha!” Bokuto shouts. Konoha keeps standing there, and he spreads his arms like he's a shield or something. 

“No!” the stranger yells, and something about “kids” (that's them!) but the flames are so high and Konoha is just - 

Akaashi's grip on Bokuto's hand tightens like he can feel the energy building up in his friend, but his grasp can't hold Bokuto back. He yanks himself free, scrambles over the bench, hits his knee and keeps going. 

Almust stumbling over his own feet he pulls through, rushes to stand in front of Konoha, not close to tall enough to shield him properly. Wide-eyed he stands, terror rushing in his ears that is not strong enough to keep him away. 

“Please don't hurt Konoha-san!” Bokuto shouts. His fear makes his voice tremble but doesn't keep him quiet. “You can't!” 

  
  


\---

  
  


There's a _kid._ The little guy spreads his arms like the fox behind him, protective. His lip quivers, but his eyes are determined and he doesn't flinch away from the befuddled group which had poured in through the door. 

“Huh?” Oikawa says, and his flames flicker. They're too close to the kid for Aone's liking – and now that he's _looking_ he can see more kids hidden away in a corner.. Besides, Watari and Yahaba gasp _Kyoutani_ so Aone figures he's the guy running towards them. 

No need for flames. 

There's really just one choice. Unfortunately, Futakuchi seems to think the same. 

The second Aone detaches his water basket and drenches Oikawa and his flames with its content, Futakuchi blasts a white shield between the child and Oikawa. Which means any additional water which might have landed somewhere else _also_ drenches the demon, and the people behind the barrier in general. 

Aone meets Futakuchi's baffled gaze, whose snort is weak and cut off as he drops the barrier of magic and stumbles. Aone is there to grasp his arms and support him immediately. Oikawa mutters “Holy shit” under his breath. 

“I think there might be a misunderstanding,” Watari says weakly. 

That's when Ushijima comes through a doorway, covered in sweat and dirt, a tool belt on his hips. He's wiping his forehead, freezes on the spot and takes a look around the room with furrowed brows. 

“Did I miss something?”

  
  


\---

  
  


“So those debts to pay -” Yahaba repeats again, his voice and expression diplomatic only as long as he doesn't look anywhere near Kyoutani's direction. 

“The wind was howling through the walls. It scares the kids and blows dust everywhere, I just needed someone to fix it.” Konoha replies calmly, hands around his cup of tea. “I figured it was a good alternative for paying the actual money Kyoutani still owed.” 

They're sitting around a table now, everyone with a steaming cup in front of them, trying to calm down from yet another nerve-wrecking misunderstanding. At least this time, nobody had been actually hurt. 

The kids have flocked around Oikawa, who abandoned tea in favour of extending the 'super exciting magic stage trick' he'd declared their entrance into an impromptu little magic show. All of them gasp as he 'pulls a flame' out of a little girl's ear. 

Futakuchi shakes his head with a light little smile, looking back at the table. His hands are still trembling around his own cup of tea, from that shield alone. Bad fucking idea, really. But in that moment he'd been too scared that anything might go wrong and any of the innocent children would get hurt. 

Oikawa would've never forgiven himself. 

So, despite the weakness Futakuchi feels from _another_ badly thought through act of magic, he doesn't regret a thing. 

“I never meant to keep Ushijima here this long,” Konoha continues, shrugging. “But he just wouldn't stop fixing things.” 

“It's a safety hazard!” Ushijima calls from where he hangs onto a strange platform held up by ropes under the roof. 

“That thing is a safety hazard!” Futakuchi calls back. “Don't fall!” 

Ushijima turns his head and looks at him, brows furrowed in that stoic not-quite confusion of his, like he can't comprehend that Futakuchi would even _assume_ he could fall. “Keep your eyes ahead!” Futakuchi snaps, and tears his gaze away from Ushijima's safety hazard monkey routine. 

Aone's eyes are practically sparkling from the taste of the tea, and Watari seems like he's found true inner peace just by seeing everyone healthy and well. Only Yahaba and Kyoutani still seem on edge, Kyoutani frozen in place and trying to avoid Yahaba's furious glare. 

All of this could've gone down much, much more differently. Futakuchi exhales, feeling some more tension leave his body, bit by bit. 

“So what was _he_ doing here?” Yahaba asks Konoha, voice calm enough, while his gaze on Kyoutani promises painful death. Futakuchi feels almost sorry for the sheepish wolf kid. (No wonder Ushijima had developed a soft spot for him and volunteered to take over his debts – and then _kept fixing this entire house.)_

“Well, _he_ was the one who owed me money,” Konoha explains. “Besides, none of this was supposed to spiral out of control like it did – we just wanted to offer him to pay his debts some other way. But who we found were you two, and there you were attacking us. Sorry for the bite. My cousin was terrified when you came at him.” 

Yahaba's cheeks turn slightly pink. “Uh, sorry, I didn't mean to – I thought -” 

Konoha waves him off. “It doesn't really matter now. Your aggression means our cover is working, so that's all I need to know.”

Konoha looks sideways, at the delighted kids staring at the sparks Oikawa is conjuring in the air for them, cheering and gasping. Something painful tugs at Futakuchi's heart. 

“So it was always just you?” Watari asks, softly.

Konoha gives him a rueful smile. “I got my friends from the wild lands to help out, to keep the image up – but here, it's just Kaori and me taking care of the kids.” Then, his expression darkens. “You can't tell anyone, though. _Nobody_ was supposed to know. When Kaori comes back she's gonna have my _head -_ I don't know why I got careless in the first place -” 

He looks over at the cooing children again, expression soft but his eyes troubled. His hand on the table curls into a fist. 

“We would never -” Watari begins, voice drowning in the mess of reassurances everyone around the table begins and cuts off. 

“Don't worry -” 

“We won't tell -” 

They fall silent, look around each other, and can't help the laughter. Konoha's lip quirks up in a smile, even though the last of the distrust in his eyes hasn't vanished yet. 

“You guys are a wild bunch,” he says, and Futakuchi isn't quite sure whether it's an insult or a compliment. 

“But …” Aone says, fingers tight around his cup. For a split-second, Futakuchi has to think of their first meeting, Aone's knuckles white around a cup of tea back then, too. “When everyone is scared of you … and nobody ever comes over … doesn't that make you lonely?” 

Konoha bites his lip. “I have Kaori and the kids,” he says, almost defensively. “And the clan comes over from time to time. Besides, it's not like we have a choice. Someone had to put an end to the -” 

He turns his head to check whether there are _really_ no prying kid eyes around. But Oikawa is utterly covered in the little ones by now, and they're all way too busy yanking at his horns and demanding more fire. 

“Someone had to put an end to the kidnapping,” Konoha says darkly. 

“Kidnapping?” Futakuchi asks, but everyone actually _from_ Karasuno has fallen quiet, looking grim. 

“So it's not just a rumour?” Yahaba asks, voice tight. Kyoutani shuffles a little closer to him, head bowed. Watari swallows heavily. 

Konoha seems to realise both Futakuchi and Aone are utterly out of the loop. He sighs deeply, and traces the edge of his cup with his finger as he talks, voice still hushed. “The anonymity here has its downsides. What's a half-blood orphan vanishing in a city that doesn't remember them in the first place?” 

“Oh,” Futakuchi says, toneless. 

Aone's cup cracks in his hand. 

Everyone at the table startles as Aone starts apologising, instead of caring about the fact that he's bleeding _and_ got hot tea all over. 

“I didn't mean to -” 

“Holy crap,” Konoha hisses, eyes wide. Watari gets a cloth out of his bag to start wiping the mess up, while Futakuchi reaches for Aone's hand to heal it.

“No.” Aone's healthy hand closes around his wrist to keep him to pry Futakuchi's hand away. Trying to glare him down Futakuchi manages to heal it at least superficially before Aone pries him off. 

“What on earth _are_ you guys,” Konoha says, then waves his hand. “No, you know what, I don't even want to know. The point is, if people knew only Kaori and I are guarding this little family, we couldn't fend them off. So our reputation has to be enough. And it is, or else you wouldn't have kicked in our door.” 

“I'm sure Ushijima will fix it,” Futakuchi says, feeling awkward. He can't believe they kicked in the door of an orphanage. By accident, but still. “We'll make up for it,” he adds. 

“And the cup,” Aone stresses. 

“It's fine,” Konoha replies, looking a little green around the nose. His ears twitch, even more than before. “Just, make sure your hand is safe.” 

Aone nods. Futakuchi bumps his shoulder affectionately. So earnest, as usual. 

Then, out of the blue, Kyoutani blurts: “We could help you out!” 

“We could what?” Yahaba and Watari ask incredulously. 

“You could what?” Konoha echoes. Then, two kids come rushing over and start tugging at Konoha's sleeve, effectively rendering any further discussion impossible. 

“Konoha Konoha Konoha!” they both yell over each other. 

“Komi, Bokuto,” Konoha replies. “What did we agree on?” 

They both take a big, dutiful gulp of air before reciting proudly: “No yelling over each other!” Then they proceed to keep yelling over each other, neither letting the other get one coherent word in. 

Futakuchi has no idea _what_ they're even talking about. 

Even though Konoha looks annoyed, Futakuchi doesn't miss the incredible softness in his eyes as he replies. “No, you can't let him burn your eyebrows away. Komi's right. I won't allow it.” 

Konoha acutally understood that? Woah. A true father, Futakuchi guesses. 

The kid called Bokuto – the brave one who had stood before Oikawa – breaks into tears over not getting to burn his own eyebrows off. “But I don't want them!” he sobs loudly, which prompts the boy next to him to look unsettled and get teary-eyed too. 

“I'm sorry,” Konoha says, already getting up trying to comfort the two kids in their eyebrow crisis. “It's getting way past bedtime, too, so I really have to take care of my little ones now -” (At the mention of bed time, Bokuto's crying escalates like a blaring siren, and Komi finally bursts into actual tears.) 

“None of you should try and climb down the cliffs in the darkness, so might as well settle in for the night and help me out.” Konoha tells them hastily over his shoulder, taking Bokuto and Komi by the hand. The other kids come running now, flocking around the crying ones, trying to cheer them up. 

Futakuchi feels so disgustingly warm and fluffy inside watching them, he can barely take it and has to avert his eyes from the cuteness. 

“Oh, and Kyoutani?” is the last Konoha adds, his smile turning back to sly. “Don't forget the present that got us into all this trouble.” 

  
  


(Bokuto stops crying when Aone carries him on his shoulders, and the kid compliments him on his beautil not-eyebrows.)

(Futakuchi snorts so hard it almost hurts.) 

  
  


\--- 

  
  


Things do calm down considerably as Oikawa bribes the kids into lying down to sleep with bedtime stories of their travels, looking utterly in his element at the center of attention with what can practically be considered a herd of kids bouncing around him, dragging him into their room. 

Kyoutani and Yahaba slink away outside, Watari's lingering glance on them a combination of worry and hope. 

There's not enough space for seven unannounced guests in the first place, so any spare blankets go to a big pile in the middle of the main room, where Aone and Watari settle on preparing something resembling bedding for everyone, talking quietly. Aone looks happy and at ease, and Futakuchi grins to himself, satisfied, before turning around and putting his hands on his hips as he moves to stand under the platform where Ushijima is still working on … whatever it is that takes him so much time hanging under the damn roof. 

“You're still working,” he calls up, keeping his voice low all the same to not disturb the kids. “Let me help.” 

Ushijima clicks his tongue. It's so quiet Futakuchi can't tell if it was just his imagination, but his eyebrow twitches in annoyance just in case. 

“You're exhausted,” Ushijima states.

Of course he is, but Futakuchi's body answers with absolute defiance as he grips for a rope, grits his teeth, and starts pulling himself up to where Ushijima is still sitting on the biggest safety hazard around. 

“What are you -” Ushijima begins and cuts himself off his pointless question. Futakuchi would really like to snap back 'What does it look like?!', but he's too out of breath for that and busy pulling himself up a damn rope, feet braced on the wall. 

Which is, honestly, a tremendously bad idea. 

Futakuchi grits his teeth, realising with a pang that his strength will give in any second. He won't be able to make it down in time, not without hurting himself when he drops awkwardly from too high. 

So he pushes himself, one last leap upwards, reaching up his left hand. 

Ushijima's fingers wrap around his wrist without fail. 

He pulls Futakuchi up onto the wobbly platform, swaying in a way that makes Futakuchi slightly nauseous. He feels light-headed and his muscles are aching, but Ushijima wraps one arm around him to steady him. 

As Ushijima's warm fingers settle on his hip, Futakuchi figures this wasn't such a bad idea after all. 

“I don't see how you're going to be of any help here.” 

Futakuchi snorts. Charming as ever. 

“Shut up,” he huffs in response, elbowing Ushijima's ribs lightly. “I was worried about you, you know. And all the while you were fixing roofs.” 

“Safety is important,” Ushijima replies, before he gets a little more sheepish. “I'm sorry, I should have said something. I figured I would be back in time, but I couldn't leave here before I knew the place was safe for the kids.” 

Futakuchi bites his lip to keep the well of affection in his chest in check. 

“You're too good,” he whispers, more to himself, but of course Ushijima hears. 

“I don't see how that's a bad thing.” 

“It's not.” 

“Good,” Ushijima replies, and Futakuchi does not need to see his face to imagine the slight quirk to his lips that comes with it. 

  
  


\---

  
  


“You know, after today, your explanation better be good,” Yahaba says, breath puffing in the cool night air. It feels good to get out of the cramped house, and the sky ahead is dotted with an abundance of stars. Even when his initial anger hasn't subsided, the sight grounds him, calms him down. 

He turns his head, breath hitching in his throat. From here, the city down in the valley is all scattered lights, huddling before the endless sea stretching out. The moon is big and bright enough to cast a dark glint over it, stretching endlessly towards the horizon.

It takes him a little to find his breath, to say his words. He tries to give them some bite, but it comes out rather tame in the face of his awe. “What was worth striking a deal with who we thought was a deadly foe?” 

Kyoutani kicks at the sand a little nervously, hands shoved into his pockets. He doesn't really admire the view, his gaze only on his shoes or Yahaba. More his shoes than Yahaba. “I need to tell you something.”

“You wanna do that before or after I punch you in the face?” 

Not that Yahaba actually plans to, but that slight gulp of Kyoutani in response is satisfaction enough. 

“Before,” he replies with emphasis. 

Yahaba shoves his cold hands into his own pockets and bounces on the balls of his feet, and back again. “So, talk.” 

Kyoutani fist clenches around whatever 'present' he must have struck the deal for. “So – I asked Watari – and he said I needed something of, like, greatest value or something. So I figured this would be the right thing?” 

He sticks his hand out awkwardly, and Yahaba is almost reluctant to examine it. 

When he does, all breath escapes him. “Holy fuck.” 

After all the struggle they went through, there is no doubt the silver shine to the two brooches in Kyoutani's palm is real. Their beauty is more simple than flashy, formed in a delicate way, spirals like the whirl of air ending in a small shimmer of white in their midst. Actual _jewels._

Yahaba realises his mouth is still hanging open and closes it. 

A little awkwardly, Kyoutani gestures at the rusty brooches which keep the shirt in place that is wrapped around Yahaba's upper body to suit his wings. “I … figured you might appreciate new ones? Konoha assured me they wouldn't break easily – if they do he'll fix them personally -”

Yahaba closes Kyoutani's fingers around the brooches, holding on to his hand as he leans forward and presses a clumsy kiss to the corner of Kyoutani's mouth. 

(It was totally supposed to be aimed there. Totally.) 

When he pulls back his face is burning, but Kyoutani's flush has reached far more impressive levels, and he's literally just staring at Yahaba like a deer caught in the headlight. Yahaba laughs, fondness humming through his veins, and leans back in to kiss Kyoutani properly this time. 

They're both clumsy and a little awkward, but it's perfect,in its very own way. Perfect because Kyoutani is healthy and alive and so, so warm – just the two of them, beyond the pattern of stars in the sky and above the cluster of city lights and endless shimmer of the sea. 

Both of them are stunned into utter silence when they break apart, their breathing the only sound between them. 

“Shit,” is the first thing Kyoutani says. Yahaba is about to punch his shoulder for ruining the mood, but Kyoutani is already scrambling to the ground. “I dropped the brooches.” 

“You're kidding.” Yahaba bends down, manages to bang their heads together, and startles Kyoutani with a breathless laugh. He rubs his own head, then Kyoutani's, who is still searching frantically. 

Yahaba takes a second to look at him, think this day over in his mind. All the worry and fear and anger and extraordinary things.“What a day, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Kyoutani replies, trying to sound neutral, but his dorky grin gives him away. Fuck, he's adorable. 

“I won't actually become your boyfriend unless we find the brooches again, though,” Yahaba adds casually. “They're way too precious for that.” 

“Take your dumb brooches,” Kyoutani growls, shoving a fistful of dust and sand at Yahaba along with them. He blinks for a second. That was fast. 

Grinning himself (there's no helping it, not when he feels so giddy and buzzing and _right)_ , Yahaba fumbles with the brooches, finally changing his old and worn ones - which had given him countless headaches - for … this gift. 

“They're beautiful,” he mutters, admiring their shine. He brushes his fingers over the delicate handiwork on his shoulder, then tangles them with Kyoutani's. Both of them are still sitting on the ground, fingers numb with cold, shivering slightly. Kyoutani shuffles closer, and he's warm when his arm sneaks around Yahaba's waist, shy like a question. Yahaba leans into the touch, and Kyoutani rests his head on his shoulder, and together they look ahead at the sea. 

“Could we stay here?” Kyoutani asks, eventually. Breaking their comfortable silence. “Help with the kids?” 

Yahaba squeezes his hand, heart aching. “I was thinking about going back to my homeland, to find a teacher … to learn how to actually _use_ my magic despite how low it is.” 

“Oh.” Kyoutani falls silent. Yahaba starts rubbing small circles into his palm with his thumb. 

“I'd … return, of course. Once I've mastered my magic, made something of myself.” 

“You're already so much,” Kyoutani says, voice unbearably small. Yahaba smiles, the compliment making his heart both jump and ache - ache with how torn he suddenly feels. There are so many questions, and decisions to make. But, not tonight. 

Tonight, he's found something too precious to be overshadowed by worries. 

“We'll figure it out,” he says, just so that wrinkle between Kyoutani's brows will vanish, so his gaze will stop being troubled instead of _happy_ like it's supposed to be. “Let's ask Watari, too.” Yahaba leans over and presses a kiss to Kyoutani's cheek. “We'll be fine.” 

Kyoutani nods, even though he still looks a little run over. Yahaba almost curses himself for dropping this so quickly on him, but waiting any longer wouldn't have done much good either, would it? 

Despite the cold, they refuse to return to the house, only huddle closer together. Kyoutani rubs circles into Yahaba's hip, and Yahaba into his palm where their hands are linked, and both of them drift into thoughts of different directions. 

Right here and now, their embrace is warm, and their hearts are beating in synch, and that is enough. 

\---

  
  


“You should both sleep,” Aone says sternly from the ground, then turns around to Oikawa and Watari, who have found a cracked game of chess which they are trying to play with only half the pieces available. “And you, too. It's late.” 

Yahaba and Kyoutani have not yet returned, which according to their friend, is a good sign. Else Aone probably would tell them to go to bed already, too. 

The only one actually listening immediately is Ushijima – Oikawa and Watari are far too busy pondering and arguing over fair rules. 

“I'm going ahead,” Ushijima declares easily, and Futakuchi narrows his eyes at him. 

“So you can catch me if I fall?” 

Futakuchi can swear there's a glint in Ushijima's eyes before he grips the rope and starts swinging down, when he says: “Try not to, though.”

Futakuchi huffs and inches across the wooden board towards the side where Ushijima climbed down. 

“Get off your high horse!” he calls after him. And then there's a crack. 

“You've gotta be fuckin' kidding me,” Futakuchi curses, a second before the platform he has deemed a safety hazard all night gives in on one side. He tries to cling to something to stop himself from falling, but the rope slips from his grasp, and then he's falling. 

_ Healing this will be a pain,  _ he thinks, almost resigned to it. Futakuchi tries to twist himself into a position which won't drop him sideways like a wet rag onto the ground, but - 

He doesn't actually hit the ground. 

Because Ushijima 'I'm naturally infuriatingly perfect' Wakatoshi catches him easily, one arm under his knees, one supporting his back.

Futakuchi blinks at Ushijima, heart still racing from the drop. Ushijima looks a little surprised, but definitely smug, and Futakuchi wants to shove his face away. But he also wants to kiss him really, really badly. 

“We need to fix that, too,” Ushijima dead-pans. 

Oikawa bursts into laughter behind them. 

  
  


  
  


  
  


“So did you just fall for Ushiwaka, Fu-chan?” Oikawa asks with a way too wide grin, at least having enough mercy in his rotten soul to not start this around Ushijima for once. 

“Shut up,” Futakuchi growls back. 

“It was a trick question anyway, you fell for him a long time ag- _hey!”_

Futakuchi kicks his shin, Oikawa pinches his cheeks, and then they wrestle in the most embarrassing way until Aone drags them apart and forces them to sleep on his left and right, with him as a neutral zone between. Ushijima nonchalantly curls up under the table, and all of them are already fast asleep when Kyoutani and Yahaba finally come back, frozen to the bone and their hands still linked. 

  
  


\--- 

  
  


They wake up covered in excited kids. 

It's a nice change of pace, Aone thinks. Now, all his friends seem at ease, the biggest problem being space, but Aone doesn't mind squeezing together a little and feeling people close. It's lively and warm and he appreciates it very much. 

The kids are fantastic and once they warm up to him they climb all over him and demand his attention, and he's all too happy to oblige and spoil them with stories, braiding Yukie's hair over and over again once she figures out he can do that. He has to reassure all the boys that if they wanted, they could have long hair no problem, and then braid it, too. 

Watari, Kyoutani and Yahaba leave around midday, unwilling to take up too much space that is needed for the group of four who plan to keep heading towards the wasteland and don't have a reason to return back down to the city at all. 

But the three promise to come back and tell Konoha about their decision. 

Aone would like for them to stay and help – the kids adore them already, and he can't help but feel worried for Konoha and Kaori, who sacrifice so much to keep these little kids safe. Three extra helping hands and some lively company would be nice, he figures. But of course it's ultimately their decision. 

  
  


  
  


Ushijima takes two more days to repair every corner of the house. 

Part of Aone wishes it would take him a week, or a month, or maybe a couple of them. His throat feels tight and tighter as their departure draws closer. Meeting new people always means saying goodbye eventually, too, and he doesn't like that at all.

Even though Futakuchi assures him it won't be forever, that they might come back – Aone's heart isn't made for goodbyes. Not at all. 

  
  


On the morning of their departure, there's a knock on the door. The kids gets excited because they expect Kaori returning from her family visit – but it's Yahaba, Kyoutani and Watari standing there. Aone is overjoyed to see Watari another time. 

“I'm looking for a teacher around here,” Yahaba tells them. “Your work here is much more important and if there's a way we can help, we'd love to.” 

Kyoutani and Watari grin wide behind him. Konoha looks more pleased than he'd like to let on, probably. 

The kids are just happy they get to play fetch more with Kyoutani. (Aone doesn't have the impression it's a voluntary decision on Kyoutani's part.) 

  
  


Knowing none of them will be quite alone, that they have each other, makes goodbye easier, but only a little. As with Hinata back in Shiratorizawa, it hurts all over and deep. 

“Be safe,” Konoha tells them, handing them bags stuffed with food. The kids cling to their feet and cry, and Watari gives Aone a little token – a crude wood carving of a sphinx. Aone only knows what it's supposed to be after Watari tells him, and his heart swells because aside from the gold ring around his neck, it's the most beautiful present he's ever gotten. 

Maybe he crushes Watari a little in his hug. 

With the kids he's more careful. Their tears make his eyes water, and in the end he has to wrench himself away and slips the goggles over his eyes so nobody has to see him cry. 

“You alright?” Futakuchi asks him, when the hut is long out of sight. Aone presses his lips together and shakes his head, and Futakuchi squeezes his shoulder, but doesn't pry. 

Only when they finally reach the top of the cliff and the vast plains stretching on from there does Aone allow himself the luxury of slipping off the goggles and crying to himself a little, trailing at the end of the group. 

Travelling is hard, sometimes. 

  
  


\---

  
  


Compared to the busy days cramped in the foxes' house, covered in kids, the vast and empty lands of Karasuno weigh far harder on Oikawa than he would have anticipated. 

Nobody had been joking. It _is_ a jagged wasteland. The plants that grow here are wiry and harsh, the animals that live here fast and ruthless. The winds that blows, constantly, ruins any hair style. As do the goggles they’re forced to wear literally at all times against the sand and dust blowing into their faces. Scarf up to the edges of his goggles, Oikawa can swear he feels sand crunching between his teeth at any time of the day. 

There’s no way to really speak on their hike, except for when they seek shelter in caves for the nights, finally catching breaks and getting food that is warm and not just dried meat to chew on along with the sand. 

Spending his days mostly isolated from the others, with wind tugging at him and nothing but the same monotone landscape around him drives Oikawa _insane._ And it gives him too much time to be alone with his own thoughts. 

After Shiratorizawa, and Oikawa's talk with Yahaba – his oh so awe inspiring speech - the word 'hypocrite' is plastered across his heart, over and over, and the frustration with himself chokes Oikawa right up until he feels like screaming against the Karasuno winds. Screaming until his voice gives out and this endless fucking land is _forced_ to listen to him. Acknowledge him. 

(What _is_ there to acknowledge, honestly?!) 

All the frustration makes Oikawa snappy enough to ruin what little time he does have to actually _talk_ with his friends, when they find another cave to retire in. He blows up in their faces over something so mundane, Oikawa has already forgotten what it was when he lies awake in the darkness, listening to the soft breathing around him, too high-strung to fall asleep. 

When he finally passes out, it's restless and more due to exhaustion than anything calming down inside of him. 

He wakes way too early, too. It’s still dark out, and nobody is awake yet – but Oikawa's restless energy from the night before hasn't vanished. Feeling like he _has_ to move before he starts screaming and doesn't stop, he pushes himself up and tip-toes past the frames of his friends on the floor. 

The winds outside have quieted down for once, so he snaps a flame alive in his palm and makes his way towards the hint of oncoming sunrise, trying to get some fresh air into his lungs and mind. 

Since he doesn't trust anything else, Oikawa moves in a straight line, eyes on his compass. 

What he finds is another cliff. Fucking figures. 

Peeking over the edge of it, Oikawa's breath hitches in his throat when he realises he can't even see where it ends. The little rush of adrenaline makes him feel not only awake but  _ alive _ , and so he carefully sits down at the edge, his legs dangling in the air. 

He braces himself on his hands behind him and watches the first peek of light on the horizon. 

When he exhales, he feels grounded for the first time since he had left the kids behind who had looked at him like he was the center of their world and reacted to sparks with a passion and joy that was honestly unrivalled. For the first time since they had left actual _civilisation_ behind. 

His thoughts drift and of course spiral back to that one moment - when he'd led the group behind him, still thinking they were about to head into a fight. How incredible it had felt, this responsibility, this trust they had put in him. 

Then Oikawa thinks about what Konoha and his wife sacrificed to do something good in their life, to help all these lost little children who might have been snatched from their home country or grown up on the streets. 

What is Oikawa doing with his life? 

_ Hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite,  _ his mind whispers, but the words don't carry much weight in the face of the rising sun promising a new day. So instead, he thinks about home. H is mother. Futakuchi and dumb pranks and how Aone had apparently adopted him ever since the lobsters. That damn big softie and his lobsters. 

And then, he thinks about all the strange and dangerous adventures and twists and turns they’ve been through, and a soft smile curls on his lips. The sun is rising, and so are his spirits. 

_ Hypocrites can change, too,  _ he thinks, and feels lighter, much more hopeful. Besides, this forsaken hike through Karasuno won't drag on forever. And then he'll see the land of the dragons for the first time! It's going to be incredible, and even when the journey ends, at least now – now Oikawa has an idea of what to do with his life afterwards. 

He’s not sure how long he’s sitting there, at the edge of that cliff that still leaves him a little breathless in the best kind of way. When the rough lines of the stone have dug into his palms as a temporary mark, and the peace which had smoothed over the ragged edges of his thoughts the last days doesn't seem to slip through his fingers, Oikawa figures he should get back before the others start to worry. 

Right on cue, there's a soft tap in the middle of his palm. 

Ah, Futakuchi. So worried about his best friend. (Oikawa is both his arch nemesis and best friend and Aone can show around that ring as much as he wants,  _ Oikawa  _ has the telepathic connection with Futakuchi and secret language to communicate,  _ ha _ !) 

He taps his palm twice in turn. 

_ Don’t worry.  _

There’s a pinch, and Oikawa can almost envision Futakuchi’s grumbly pout.  _ Don’t make me worry, asshole.  _ He laughs, feels a lot lighter, and carefully gets up. 

That’s the problem with Karasuno, though. The winds are unpredictable. 

He’s half-crouched, turned around, when a strong gust throws him off balance. 

His fingers grasp for the edge, miss. 

He’s falling. 

The scream gets stuck in his throat. 

  
  


\---

  
  


“He’s still not back,” Futakuchi mumbles. He’s freaked out. The others are trying to calm him down, but earlier, all he had felt had been a sudden, piping hot burn of his hand, and then - nothing. Nothing ever since. 

Aone and Ushijima are crouched around a fire, sharing the task of cooking. It feels almost domestic, despite the whole ragged-cave-in-the-middle-of-nowhere aesthetic. If only Oikawa wouldn’t be fucking  _ missing  _ without a single word or  _ sign.  _

“If he’s not back in five minutes, I’m going out and I won’t come back until I rounded him up and dragged him back at his dumb horns.” 

He can feel Ushijima’s and Aone’s gaze on him, and can't tell whether their worry is for Oikawa or him, or maybe both. But no matter what they think - _something_ definitely happened, and around these parts, it can’t mean anything good. 

  
  


\---

  
  


His mind is gearing up for the whole just-before-death protocol, probably - life flashing, all the regrets, like not saving more lobsters during his lifetime - but never actually gets to kick into that mode, because Oikawa falls wide-eyed, staring at the sky. 

So he sees the dark blur rushing towards him, squeezes his eyes shut in his panic, and feels a strong pair of arms wrap around him. 

His fall is stopped abruptly, and Oikawa can only conclude that his stomach has dropped to his feet. Gasping, he scrambles to wrap his arms around whatever is holding him, which feels very much human, only there’s a sound like wings and suddenly the fall continues in the other direction. Oikawa’s dazed mind offers that falling in the different direction probably means they’re flying, but he’s feeling nauseous and they’re going really fast and his entire being is just nerves and panic and more nerves and panic. 

And then there’s solid ground under his feet. Well, butt, more like. His legs are weak, and he’s just a crumpled heap still clinging to whoever has their arms wrapped around him. 

“Careful there.” The voice is warm and rich and soothing. 

Oikawa blinks his eyes open, catching sight of a huge wing half-curled around him like a comfort, a rich shade of brown, orange, white, scattered with dark dots. Oikawa fills his lungs with air, deep, heaving breaths, and studies the pattern of that wing, drawn in by its beauty.

But he realises he has seen  _ nothing  _ until he pulls back and blinks into the face of the man who had saved him. 

His eyes have the exact same, rich brown of his wings - burning even brighter against the dark lines under his eyes, ending in sharp tips on his cheek. Oikawa can’t tell whether it is coal or not, and part of him wants to reach out and touch it, find out. Those marks make the man's gaze even more intense, and it sends a shiver down Oikawa's spine that has nothing to do with his almost-drop to certain death. 

The stranger's hair is grey, ruffled from the wind, one strand of it sticking up stubbornly. 

This person is no doubt the most beautiful person Oikawa has ever seen in his life. 

Then he realises, kind of belatedly, that of course the wings are sprouting from the man’s shoulders. He’s still loosely cradling Oikawa in an embrace, studying him, concerned and curious, eyes bright. 

This man must be a true angel. 

It’s too bad Oikawa must have said it out loud, because all of a sudden, the angel lets go of him. Oikawa braces himself on the ground, staring up as the man rises to his full height. His wings are breath-taking, spread to their full span against the rising glow of the sun. 

The man’s face is twisted in a sneer, which should probably worry Oikawa, but his gaze is transfixed on where grey hair turns into a dusting of feathers where sideburns should be, wondering if they would feel as soft as they look. Sure, there is also the angel's hands, shaped and coloured strangely, with long, dark tallons which look razor sharp and absolutely deadly. 

But Oikawa almost just died, he figures he's allowed some self-indulgence. 

“ You dare call me an angel?” the man hisses. “I am a harpy, the very definition of danger, the worst predator found in all of Karasuno. Cougars cower before me, all creatures do. I am  _ made  _ of fear, demon. An angel? Don’t  _ insult  _ me. I eat those fluffy, cowardly  _ babies  _ for breakfast.”

Oikawa only processes half of that rant, too enchanted by the creature before him. That man -  _ harpy  _ \- is the most dangerous and most gorgeous sight, and looking at him, Oikawa gets the same feeling he had standing at the edge of those cliffs. A very bad idea - potentially lethal - and yet the thrill makes his heart beat faster, the air taste richer. Makes him feel  _ alive.  _

“Don’t go playing at the edges again,” the harpy snarls. “Next time I will simply let you drop to your death.” 

With that he whirls around, breaks into a sprint of feather-light steps. He leaps, across the edge of the cliff, spreads his wings and takes flight, spiralling into the air in a blur, leaving Oikawa gaping, trembling. 

Is he grinning? He’s definitely grinning like a maniac. Oikawa probably lost it, he’s aware. 

Right in front of him is a single feather left behind, and he reaches for it before the wind can carry it off. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild Suga appears!   
> Wild Suga uses charm!   
> It is super effective!
> 
> Suga's wings are inspired by the common kestrel btw, which are also adorable grey-headed birds that can Fuck You Up.
> 
> /jazz hands  
> Tune in next week for more Karasuno, less dropping off cliffs, and perhaps our heroes catching a break for once! [awkward audience laughter] 
> 
> [Alternate chapter summaries: In which the gang accidentally kicks in an orphanage door.  
> In which Oikawa finds the most literal way to fall for someone.  
> In which Ushijima can Fix It!  
> In which Bokuto is forced to keep his eyebrows.  
> In which the author spent an entire weekend screaming into the void, working non-stop trying to wrestle 14.000 fucking words.]

**Author's Note:**

> And it only gets wilder from here. 
> 
> Honestly, I could write another 30k on the writing process of this fic. Never have I witnessed something as wild and insane as the past six days and nights, and I wouldn't have managed without my bff holding my hand, inspiring me and helping to shape the plot. Thanks for being my co-pilot <3
> 
> Tune in next week for Oikawa Tooru giving horrible life advice, oyster wrestling, and more cheesy one-liners!


End file.
